![]() ![]() ![]() It displays a gentler side of Shaw’s razor-sharp mind, as he pits the robust moralistic minister Morrell against the passionate milksop Marchbanks in a battle for the affections of the title character, Morrell’s wife. It’s a shame we haven’t seen this scintillating comedy in New York in more than 15 years. Katharine Cornell-considered, along with Helen Hayes, as one of the first ladies of the American theater in the 1930s and ’40s-headlined five Broadway productions of the play, one of which featured the young Marlon Brando as the sensitive poet Marchbanks, before he tackled his polar opposite, the brutish Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire." Joanne Woodward and Mary Steenburgen starred in revivals for Circle in the Square in 1981 and Roundabout in 1993, respectively. Of all of George Bernard Shaw’s many witty and wonderful plays, "Candida" (1898) is revived the least often these days, perhaps because it’s best known as a star vehicle for the sort of glamorous dramatic diva that no longer exists. ![]()
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