The Philanderer
Opening Night: January 22, 2012
Closing: February 19, 2012
Theater: New York City Center - Stage II
Leonard Charteris has two big problems–called Grace and Julia. He can’t quite win the heart of one or break free of the other. And he’s fairly sure it’s all Henrik Ibsen’s fault. Bernard Shaw’s pert and playful satire serves up a wise and wicked portrait of the perilous joys of love in a modern age.
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January 31, 2012
In a Victorian London galvanized by “A Doll’s House,” a rake is caught between the woman he loves and the woman who loves him. All are members of the Ibsen Club, where men and women may socialize, provided they are committed to more “advanced,” modern relationships. Eventually, though, all learn that each alternative — marriage or an idealized, unrealized courtship of equals — carries its own disappointments.
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January 24, 2012
The Pearl Theatre Company revival of George Bernard Shaw’s The Philanderer had many in the audience wondering why this delightful and deliciously scandalous play is not produced more often. Of course, the sex implied and on view between corseted women and waist-coated men is nothing to raise a contemporary eyebrow, but in its day, 1893, it was banned for 15 years.
READ THE REVIEWJanuary 25, 2012
People who care about theater grapple with certain questions: What should theater be? Where is theater going? To approach these issues, one must first know where theater has been. The Pearl Theatre Company, now in its twenty-eighth season, provides us with this knowledge by thoughtfully staging classic plays year after year. Its newest offering is a production of Bernard Shaw’s 1893 comedy, The Philanderer.
READ THE REVIEWJanuary 18, 2012
Bernard Shaw was at the very beginning of his career when he wrote The Philander in 1893. Yet he already displayed his penchant of taking on eyebrow raising issues. In this, his second play he focused on the battle of the sexes but also included the generation gap and the medical profession and poked fun at the British reaction to Henrik Ibsen’s ground-breaking feminist plays like The Doll’s House. Small wonder that it was considered too controversial, delaying its first production until almost a decade later.
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January 23, 2012
George Bernard Shaw tweaks the Edwardian ideals of "manly men" and "womanly women," even as he jests about an alternative to such gender roles in The Philanderer, which Pearl Theatre Company is currently offering at New York City Center Stage II.
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