Post-Show Questions for Discussion and Activities

Note to Educators: Use the following assignments, questions, and activities to have students evaluate their experience of the performance of Mrs. Warren's Profession, as well as to encourage their own imaginative and artistic projects through further exploration of the play in production. Consider also that some of the pre-show activities might enhance your students’ experience following the performance.

1. MRS. WARREN’S PROFESSION: PERFORMANCE REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION. Following their attendance at the performance of Mrs. Warren’s Profession, ask your students to reflect on the questions below. You might choose to have them answer each individually or you may divide students into groups for round-table discussions. Have them consider each question, record their answers and then share their responses with the rest of the class.

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR STUDENTS ABOUT THE PLAY IN PRODUCTION

1. What was your overall reaction to Mrs. Warren’s Profession? Did you find the production compelling? Stimulating? Intriguing? Challenging? Memorable? Confusing? Evocative? Unique? Delightful? Meaningful? Explain your reactions.
   
   
2. Did experiencing the play heighten your awareness or understanding of the play’s themes? [e.g., the potential of long-hidden secrets, once revealed, to test, confound, and potentially fracture families and individuals; the conflicts (both ordinary and extraordinary) that challenge mother-daughter/parent-child relationships; the failings of capitalism and the causes and consequences of poverty; patriarchy and the class system in relation to the status and socio-political oppression of women; and social and moral hypocrisy and the sexual double standard.] What themes were made even more apparent in performance? Explain your responses.
   
   
3. Do you think that the pace and tempo of the production were effective and appropriate? Explain your opinion.
   
   

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR STUDENTS ABOUT THE CHARACTERS

1. Did you personally identify with any of the characters in Mrs. Warren’s Profession? Who? Why? If no, why not?
   
   
2. What qualities were revealed by the action and speech of the characters? Explain your ideas.
   
   
3. Did either character develop or undergo a transformation during the course of the play? Who? How? Why?
   
   
4. In what ways did the characters reveal the themes of the play? Explain your responses.
   
   

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR STUDENTS ABOUT THE STYLE AND DESIGN OF THE PRODUCTION

1. Was there a moment in Mrs. Warren’s Profession that was so compelling or intriguing that it remains with you in your mind’s eye? Write a vivid description of that moment. As you write your description, pretend that you are writing about the moment for someone who was unable to experience the performance.
   
   
2. Did the style and design elements of the production enhance the performance? Did anything specifically stand out to you? Explain your reactions.
   
   
3. How did the production style and design reflect the themes of the play?
   
   
4. What mood or atmosphere did the lighting design establish or achieve? Explain your experience.
   
   
5. How did the sound design enhance your overall experience?
   
   
6. Did the design of the costumes and makeup serve to illuminate the characters, themes, and style of the play? How?
   
   

2. ADDITIONAL POST-SHOW QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION POINTS FOR MRS. WARREN’S PROFESSION.

• Ask students to brainstorm a list of themes explored in Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren's Profession. [See list of themes above in “Questions to Ask Your Students About the Play in Production, section b.] Ask students to identify moments from the play in which these themes were explored. Ask them if they can personally (either intellectually or emotionally) identify with any of these themes or with anything relating to the characters in the play. Have them explain their responses. Ask your students to recall and make connections to other plays or works of literature they have read or studied with themes similar to those of Mrs. Warren’s Profession
  
  
• Inform your students that Mrs. Warren’s Profession was originally published by Shaw in a two-volume collection of plays entitled Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant. Perhaps not surprisingly—given its “indecent” subject matter and the scandal that surrounded the play and kept it from being publically performed in England for thirty years—Mrs. Warren’s Profession was included in the collection’s first volume which featured the dramatist’s “unpleasant” works. Of these plays, Shaw indicated that “their dramatic power is used to force the spectator to face unpleasant facts.” Ask students to discuss the unpleasant facts that must be faced in relation to Mrs. Warren’s Profession. Also ask them if the content seemed indecent or offensive to them, a twenty-first century audience. Prompt them to explain their responses. Then inquire about what subjects would be considered unpleasant, improper, indecent, or offensive by today’s theater audiences?
  
  
• Ask students if they feel that Mrs. Warren's Profession has an ending that could be described as happy? Ask them to defend their responses with evidence from the play/performance. It might be useful to indicate at some point in the discussion that the play is often categorized as a comedy—did they view it thusly? Traditionally, a comedy revolves around a family or community that falls into chaos and which is restored to order by a play’s end; comedies usually concluded with a wedding (the ultimate sign of stability and harmony). Consider Shaw’s conclusion of Mrs. Warren's Profession? Ask your students Shaw’s intention might have been with such an ending? What might he have been trying to say about modern comedy? About domestic bliss? About the “New Woman?”
  
  
• Ask students to consider who Shaw was intending to criticize or hold up for scrutiny with Mrs. Warren's Profession? Ask them to consider who would have been the audience to Shaw’s play in 1894 had he been able to have the play performed? Can students recall moments or locate passages in the play which seem directly intended to critique Shaw’s audience? Would the audience have identified personally with any of the characters in the play? Would these depictions have been considered favorable? Ask the students to compare and contrast the audience for the McCarter production (including themselves) to Shaw’s original audience.
  
  
• Ask students to consider the relationship between Mrs. Warren and Vivie. How is this mother-daughter relationship typical to parent-child relationships from their own experience? How is it unusual? How much are Vivie and Mrs. Warren’s conflicts related to Mrs. Warren’s “profession” and their specific situation, and how much are they related to the universal gap between generations?

3. MRS. WARREN’S PROFESSION 2008: UPDATING/ADAPTING SHAW
   Theatrical adaptation involves the rewriting of a dramatic text, utilizing the original work as raw material. Adaptation can entail the relatively straightforward transposition of a play’s original place and time with minor changes in character and/or dialogue necessary for the play’s new context. Emily Mann’s A Seagull in the Hamptons, based upon Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull and performed last season at McCarter, is this sort of adaptation. [Other approaches to adaptation involve extensive changes to text, narrative content and even meaning (e.g., cuts in text/dialogue, rearrangement of narrative/story, stylistic changes, a different dramatic focus, elimination/addition of characters or locations, a collage of foreign elements/texts, a different ending.) Lookingglass Theatre’s Lookingglass Alice, based upon Lewis Carroll’s novels Alice in Wonderland and Through the Lookingglass, and Heiner Müller’s Hamletmachine, based upon William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, are both this latter sort of adaptation.]
   
   Have your students match wits and issues with Shaw by engaging them in the adaptation and updating/modernization of a dramatic moment from Mrs. Warren’s Profession. Working in small groups, students should choose one of the following dramatic moments from the play for present-day adaptation (or they may adapt a dramatic moment from the play of their own choosing):

• Act II: The “great scene” between Vivie and Kitty Warren.(See “Pre-Show Preparation, Questions for Discussion and Activities,” number 4 for additional insight.)
• Act III: Vivie and Crofts scene.
• Act IV: Vivie’s and Frank’s brother-sister scene.
• Act IV: The final scene between Vivie and Kitty Warren.

• In addition to choosing a dramatic moment for adaptation, each group of adaptors should update the time setting of the play to the present and may alter the location of where the story of the play unfolds. Adaptors should feel completely free to modify the characters and dialogue accordingly for the play’s new context. (Changes might include alterations in gender; for example, Mrs. Warren's Profession might become Mr. Warren’s Profession, Vivie might become Victor, and Frank, Frannie, etc.)
• Once completed, conduct readings of each adaptation followed by a class discussion (urge your students to focus their analysis and critique on the adaptations themselves and not the performance of its reading). Ask your students if there was an adaptation that they thought was best. Ask them to explain why it is that they found it to be superior to the other adapted dramatic moments.

4. MRS. WARREN’S PROFESSION: THE REVIEW. Have your students take on the role of theater critic by writing a review of McCarter Theatre’s production of Mrs. Warren's Profession. A theater critic or reviewer is essentially a “professional audience member,” whose job is to provide reportage of a play’s production and performance through active and descriptive language for a target audience of readers (e.g., their peers, their community or those interested in the arts). Critics/reviewers analyze the theatrical event to provide a clearer understanding of the artistic ambitions and intentions of a play and its production; reviewers often ask themselves, “What is the playwright and this production attempting to do?” Finally, the critic offers personal judgment as to whether the artistic intentions of a production were achieved, effective and worthwhile. Things to consider before writing:
   

• Theater critics/reviewers should always back up their opinions with reasons, evidence and details.
• The elements of production that can be discussed in a theatrical review are the play text or script (and its themes, plot, characters, etc.), scenic elements, costumes, lighting, sound, music, acting and direction (i.e., how all of these elements are put together). [See the “Theater Reviewer’s Checklist”.]
• Educators may want to provide their students with sample theater reviews from a variety of newspapers.
• Encourage your students to submit their reviews to the school newspaper for publication.
• Students may also post their reviews on McCarter’s web site by visiting McCarter Blog. Select “Citizen Responses” under “Categories” on the left side of the web page, and scroll down to the Mrs. Warren's Profession entry to post any reviews.

5. BLOG ALL ABOUT IT!: MRS. WARREN’S PROFESSION AFTER THE SHOW. McCarter is very interested in carrying on the conversation about Mrs. Warren's Profession with you and your students after you’ve left the theater. If you are interested in having them personally reflect upon their experience of the play in performance, but are not interested in the more formal assignment of review writing, have them instead post a post-show comment on the McCarter Theatre Blog. To access the blog, click on this link McCarter Blog , then select “Citizen Responses” under “Categories” on the left side of the web page, and scroll down to the Mrs. Warren's Profession entry to find a place to post an inquiry or comment. [For structured responses, consider the following prompt: What expectations did you bring with you to Mrs. Warren's Profession and were your expectations met, not met, or exceeded by the performance?] See you on the blog!