Shaw's 'Heartbreak House' by Delaware's Resident Ensemble Players

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Nobel Prize winner for Literature (1925) and celebrated playwright, essayist, screenwriter, theater critic, music critic, novelist, and wit, is as relevant as ever. His feminist and socialist ideas aren't as revolutionary as they were a century ago, but they’re still timely (he'd vote for Bernie Sanders) — and his plays are smart, unique, and entertaining.

The Resident Ensemble Players of the University of Delaware, only a quick drive down I-95 away, are among the few professional theaters in the region to produce Shaw occasionally. (Their production of The Millionairess last season was splendid.) They have the resources — a large stage and budget, a company of seasoned actors — to produce one of Shaw's masterworks, Heartbreak House, and do it justice.

This 1913 play considers the imminent First World War as a test of British character and soul, not in the typical nationalist ways, but in a more critical sense. Shaw abhorred war and saw "The Great War" as foolish, unnecessary, and ridiculous — so much so that England turned against him. Heartbreak House wasn't produced until 1920 in New York City, and in London a year later, when jingoistic pride had faded and Great Britain was ready for honest reflection.

He subtitled the play "A Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes," attempting to emulate Anton Chekhov's gifts for richly drawn characters and his delicate mix of comedy and pathos. Nevertheless, the play is decidedly Shavian, at once serious and outrageous.

Down the rabbit hole

Auden Thornton plays Ellie Dunn, a young woman invited to the Shotover country home by her friend Hesione (Elizabeth Heflin). She's Alice down the rabbit hole, puzzled by Hesione's peripatetic father Captain Shotover (Lee E. Ernst) and unprepared for the family's bizarre idiosyncracies.

Shaw, a comedy master, builds coincidental meetings: Ellie knows Hesione's raconteur husband, Hector (Stephen Pelinski), by another name; Hesione's sister Ariadne (Kathleen Pirkl Tague) arrives for the first time in years, her husband's fawning brother Randall (Mic Matarrese) in tow; and the captain insists that Ellie's meek father Mazzini Dunn (Alan I. Ross) is a notorious pirate. Hesione has invited businessman Boss Mangan (Matt Loney) planning to break Ellie's engagement with him. From all this, much mayhem ensues.

Yes, there's plenty of talk, too — as Shaw said, "It is quite true that my plays are just talk, just as Raphael's pictures are all paint, Michelangelo's statues are all marble, Beethoven's symphonies all noise." I love Shaw's smart characters, who debate important topics with an intelligence, wit, and passion too seldom experienced in modern plays outside of Tom Stoppard. Aitken cuts some from the script, including one character, with mixed results; I'm a purist and want the whole play, but a non-musical, non-Shakespeare play breaking the three-hour barrier is too much for most audiences today. Her production is a brisk-feeling two hours, 50 minutes.

“Courage will not save you”

When his characters face an enemy air assault in the third act — splendidly portrayed on Hugh Landwehr's shiplike set, hauntingly lit by Philip Rosenberg — the dangers they face, their terror and exultation, feel contemporary. "Courage will not save you," the Captain proclaims, "but it will show that your souls are still alive."

Shaw's magic was last seen locally in the Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium's production of the comedy Misalliance (January 28 - February 22, 2015), and his Saint Joan will run in repertory with Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus March 16 - April 22, 2016, by Quintessence Theatre Group.

Will any Philadelphia theater assay Heartbreak House? Only a few could.