O’Flaherty V.C. is the quintessential Shavian play. The time period is World War I; the setting is just before tea-time in the courtyard of a general’s manor house. In the space of a forty-five minute one act play, Shaw skewers religion, politics, education, war, and the British class system. O’Flaherty V.C. is fast, funny, and provocative;…
Four hundred and eighty-eight years after she was burned at the stake in Rouen, Joan of Arc was canonized by the Catholic Church. It’s a remarkable distance of time for healing of wounds and righting of wrongs. Equally remarkable to me as a writer, is that in 1923, or three years after her canonization, Bernard…
The Shaw Festival’s Androcles And The Lion is a delightful production. It’s fun, interactive, and can leave one with the impression that it’s improvisational at points. However, the impression of improv theatre is just that; these actors know their material to its core. The premise of the play is taken from a classical folktale whereby a…
Brilliant! That’s my conclusion about Lisa Codrington’s one act-one hour play, Adventures of The Black Girl In Her Search For God. Codrington pulls no punches yet leaves the audience in stitches, unless the theatergoer happens to be an older white male. At least four such men exited within the first twenty minutes of the production I saw…
Bonnie Lendrum 