Review: A Cleverly Reimagined MRS. WARREN'S PROFESSION at Central Square Theater

In “Mrs. Warren’s Profession,” playwright George Bernard Shaw tells the provocative story of a former prostitute turned madam who struggles to find peace with her disapproving daughter and prove that working as a prostitute is not the result of questionable morals, but rather a profession chosen out of economic necessity.

The morality play – written in 1893, and one of three works the Irish writer published in an 1898 compendium called  “Plays Unpleasant,” along with “The Philanderer” and “Widowers’ Houses” – is being given a fresh reimagining in a sharp Central Square Theater production directed by Eric Tucker, artistic director of the New York-based Bedlam, now through June 29.

At the center of the story is the relationship between Mrs. Kitty Warren and her daughter, Vivie. Mrs. Warren is a onetime lady of the evening who now runs her own lucrative house of ill repute. Vivie is a controlled young woman and recent college graduate who has returned home to get to know her mother for the first time in her life. Her plans for that relationship shift, however, when Vivie learns how her mother makes a living. Even factoring in the income inequity that led her unapologetic mother to the life, Vivie keeps her at bay.

In its earliest days, the play was first banned by Britain’s official theater censor for its handling of prostitution before finally being staged in London in 1902 at a members-only club to avoid law enforcement scrutiny. It was not until 1925 that the first public performance in London took place. The latest British revival – with Imelda Staunton, as Mrs. Warren, and her real-life daughter Bessie Carter – is now playing at the Garrick Theatre in the West End.

The U.S. also has a history of shutting down the play – or trying to, anyway – dating to 1905 when the police arrested the cast and crew of a public production mid-performance, with charges later dropped. The drama has since been revived five times on Broadway, most recently in 2010 with Cherry Jones in the starring role.

In Central Square, and with obvious nods to the family power struggles of HBO’s “Succession,” the cast is led by the always compelling Melinda Lopez, whose Mrs. Warren is a complex blend of steel-forged worldliness and, when it comes to her desire to build a relationship with her daughter, vulnerability. Luz Lopez (no relation) plays the tightly wound Vivie as a cool character whose icy reserve is meant to keep everyone at a distance. And her separation from her mother may have lasted too long for them to forge a familial bond now. Indeed, when Lopez and Lopez verbally spar, it’s more an ethical tussle than a struggle for human connection.

Unfortunately for Vivie, her reserve doesn’t stop her mother's companion and business manager, the creepy Sir George Crofts (Barlow Adamson in a portrayal that gives new meaning to the word lascivious), from crawling her way every chance he gets. Also circling Vivie, and sometimes Kitty, is the boyish Frank Gardner (a youthful and energetic Evan Taylor) whose eagerness to find someone willing to cater to his every whim is hampered by his loose lips.

As the nattily attired Praed, Nael Nacer balances the character’s slickness and self-confidence with the equally obvious reality that Praed is not as plugged-in as he would like to think. Also good is Wesley Savick as the ambling Reverend Samuel Gardner,

David R. Gammon’s scenic design – a conference room with sleek office chairs and stock-market screens hanging above, and surrounded by the metal framing of doors and windows – provides an array of entry and exit points, but the space is dominated by an oversized wooden slab of a table that sometimes obstructs the actors’ movements. Having a few of the characters come and go by climbing through a window works well, however, in creating the sense that these visits are often covert. Leslie Held’s costumes are well suited to each character, with Miranda Lopez’s Mrs. Warren stylishly chic throughout.