George Bernard Shaw's Candida is such a simple play that any one misdirected element can make the whole thing go wrong.
The play is about a love triangle, the three corners of which are the Rev. James Morell, his wife, Candida, and the poet Eugene Marchbanks. The Rev. Morell, Shaw tells us, is "a vigorous, genial, popular man of 40, robust and good looking, full of energy, with pleasant, hearty, considerate manners"; he's also a "first rate clergyman" and a Socialist. His rival for Candida's affections couldn't be more different: Marchbanks is "a strange, shy youth of 18, slight, effeminate, with a delicate childish voice, and a hunted tormented expression and shrinking manner. … Miserably irresolute, he does not know where to stand or what to do."
Asked to choose between these two is Candida herself, "a woman of 33, well built, well nourished, likely, one guesses, to become matronly later on, but now quite at her best, with the double charm of youth and motherhood." It's early in the play that Marchbanks tells Morell that he's in love with his wife; and there's much (delightful, Shavian) talk but little drama until the admirable woman is forced to decide which man needs her more. The choice being made, the play ends. We're left to muse on the wisdom of Candida's decision and the unexpected reasoning behind it.
Now, the good news is that two of the actors in the current American Stage production are just what Dr. Shaw ordered; the bad news is, the third is something else altogether. More precisely, Brian Shea as Marchbanks and Jean McDaniel Lickson as Candida are, ages notwithstanding, just right — wonderfully right — for their parts. Shea as Marchbanks is bumbling, self-tortured, on the point of tears at any moment, a physical coward. Lickson as Candida is centered, judicious, eminently sensible and instantly likable.
But David Davalos as Morell is far from being the "pleasant, hearty" anti-poet that Shaw envisioned. Davalos, who showed himself to be a fine actor in Darkfall some months ago, plays Morell as a darkly passionate hothead, a black-bearded heavy thinker who might be one of Shakespeare's villains or Sophocles' kings. Played this way, Morell appears to have a tenebrously poetic soul all his own, and the play's key conflict — between "hearty" sincerity and narcissistic authenticity — never really takes place. What can it mean if both men are sensitive, brooding romantics?
The impact of the three other actors, all in small roles, is minor. The always dependable Michael O. Smith is just right as Candida's hypocritical capitalist father, and Jon Van Middlesworth couldn't be better as Morell's colleague, the Rev. Alexander Mill — a part, however, of almost no consequence. But Susan Alexander, usually a splendid actress, is off-target as Morell's secretary Proserpine Garnett; the problem, mostly, is a not-at-all-credible Cockney accent. (In fact, there are so many variations on British accents in the show, you can't help wondering why it was necessary to insist on these at all. If Shakespeare can be played with an American twang — and he surely can — then why not Shaw?)
John Basil's direction is top-notch, though, and Scott Cooper's wonderfully authentic drawing room set is so attractive you'll want to settle into it with a good book. Cooper also designed the period costumes, which are attractive and appropriate.
Candida is one of Shaw's first plays (1894) and not one of his most important. But even here we can see him stretching his dramatic muscles, testing the theatrical potential of social paradox. What if woman is usually the stronger in a marriage? — we can imagine him asking. What if Victorian virtues are cosmetic coverings of an abyss? What if our most powerful drives — the search for love in particular — are recognized only by society's exiles? In the struggle between Morell and Marchbanks — on the page if not, here, on the stage — we can see an early step in Shaw's lifetime project of flouting conventional values, exposing traditional authority figures.
Of course, it helps if these characters look, at first, authoritative. If you're going to pull the rug out from under a cherished figure, first you have make sure he's standing squarely in the middle of it.
But in this version of Candida, Morell is not.
And the result is a production that never fully makes sense.
Lerman's Bernstein. Dance aficionados will want to catch the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange when it comes to the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center Saturday night as part of the Bernstein, Broadway, The Bomb — The Age of Anxiety Festival.
The evening's concert will consist of three dances, the last of which has been created especially for the festival. First, though, is Hallelujah: In Praise of Fertile Fields, which was originally commissioned in 2000 by Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts. The piece, set to an original score by Robert Een, illustrates the blossoming of life in the Berkshire Mountains and utilizes both festival history and interviews. Next comes Still Crossing, created in 1986 for the Statue of Liberty Centennial celebration. In this segment, members of the Lerman company are joined by dancers of all ages from the Tampa Bay area (Lerman specializes in the use of senior dancers, especially those who would ordinarily be thought too old to dance). Finally, the Exchange will present the untitled world premiere of a suite inspired by the artistic development of Leonard Bernstein, featuring solos, duets and small ensembles. Soloists include Peter DiMuro, Martha Wittman and Elizabeth Johnson, as well as an "intergenerational" cast.
The Liz Lerman Dance Exchange appears at the Shimberg Playhouse of TBPAC on Feb. 16 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $24.50-$34.50. TBPAC is located at 1010 N. MacInnes Place, Tampa. Call 813-229-STAR.
Ballet Loves Opera. Take your Valentine to see Great Love Stories and More at the Palladium in St. Petersburg, Feb. 16 and 17. The St. Petersburg Festival Ballet and the Sunstate Opera Society are both contributing to a show that promises sumptuous excerpts from celebrated love stories of both the ballet and the opera.
Show times are 7 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $7-$12 at the Palladium, 253 Fifth Ave. N., St. Petersburg. Call
727-822-3590.
Contact Performing Arts Critic Mark E. Leib at mark.leib@weeklyplanet.com or call
813-248-8888, ext. 305.
This article appears in Feb 13-19, 2002.