Product Description
Mrs. Warren's Profession (Shaw Collection, The) (DVD)
What is the profession that has enabled Mrs. Warren to give her daughter all the benefits of "good society?" Vivie Warren discovers her mother's secrets and embraces her own power as a "modern" woman.
Amazon.com Suffice to say, Mrs. Warren's profession is not Amway, but its illicit gains have allowed her estranged and unwitting daughter, Vivie, to live a life of affluence and higher education. Bernard Shaw's witty attack on "the hypocrisy of the world" and "fashionable morality" is given a compelling staging in this impeccably acted 1972 BBC production starring the venerable Coral Browne ( Auntie Mame ) as the "wicked" Mrs. Warren and Penelope Wilton ( The Norman Conquests, Match Point) as the thoroughly modern Vivie, who herself confounds family friends and suitors (by turns incorrigible or lecherous) with her own unconventional mercenary attitudes. Shaw's play, written in 1893, but banned until 1925, is undoubtedly tame by today's standards, but its ideas, passionately debated by mother and daughter, are still provocative. The ironic use of period parlor songs ("That old fashioned mother of mine" is a sample lyric) add to the scandalous fun. --Donald Liebenson
