The Philanderer
by George Bernard ShawDirected by Leah Bonvissuto
Cast: Julian Stetkevych (Leonard Charteris), Anne Gill (Grace Tranfield), Tatiana Gomberg (Julia Craven), Duncan Hazard (Joseph Cuthbertson), Greg Horton Colonel Daniel Craven), Shauna Horn (The Page), Mickey Ryan (Dr. Paramore), Barrie Kreinik (Sylvia Craven)
Set Design: David Fuller
Costume Design: Mira Veikley
Lighting Design: Sherrice Kelly
Running Time: 2 hours 15 minutes, with one intermission
Theater Ten Ten 1010 Park Avenue, between 84th & 85th Street. 212-288-3246
From 2/13/09; closing 3/15/0
February 13-16, 20-23, 26 (NO PERF on 27) 28, March 1, 2, 6 -9, 12-15. All Friday, Saturday, & Monday performances are at 8:00PM. Sunday matinees at 3pm
Tickets: $20
The Philanderer
by George Bernard ShawDirected by Leah Bonvissuto
Prolific playwright G. B. Shaw (1856-1950) authored more than sixty plays. Nearly all of his writings deal sternly with prevailing social problems, but are leavened by a vein of comedy to make their stark themes more palatable. An ardent socialist, he became an accomplished orator in the furtherance of causes included gaining equal political rights for men and women, alleviating abuses of the working class, rescinding private ownership of productive land, and promoting healthful lifestyles. He is the only person to have been awarded both the Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938). These were for his contributions to literature and for his work on the film Pygmalion, respectively.
The Philanderer is a comedy where the charismatic Leonard Charteris is a philosophizing philanderer who believes that only conventional people marry while advanced people form "charming friendships." But when he meets a self-described "new women" who belongs only to herself and is the property of no man, he may have met his match, if not his mate!
It is one of the three plays Shaw published as Plays Unpleasant in 1898, because its purpose is not to entertain its audience - as the traditional Victorian theatre was supposed to - but instead to raise awareness of social problems and serve as a criticism of capitalist behavior.
With Plays Unpleasant, Shaw issued a radical challenge to his audiences' complacency and exposed social evils through his dramatization of the moral conflicts between youthful idealism and economic reality, promiscuity and marriage, and the duties of women to others and to themselves. All this with plenty of humor!
We welcome the exciting up and coming director, Leah Bonvissuto to the helm!
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