38 - Reception in London, 1892–1950

Summary

First-night reviews offer a ready assessment of the reception of Shaw's plays in London's West End during his lifetime. Some reviewers were disposed favourably to Shaw and the New Drama, although their stance did not preclude criticism. More conservative reviewers were inclined to criticise Shaw's work, but they also praised where they saw fit and regularly issued blunt appraisals of traditional productions. However, reviewers were not the sole arbiters: audiences rendered verdicts, either on the first night, or implicitly by their subsequent attendance of a production. Equally telling is the context provided by the variety of productions audiences chose to patronise instead of Shaw's plays. Moreover, managers, directors, and actors were sensitive to audience preferences that determined the character of a fundamentally commercial enterprise: plays had to succeed to survive. Ultimately, in the totality of West End productions from 1892 to 1950, Shaw's work comprised a relatively modest share. Nevertheless, Shaw has been justly called ‘the leading playwright of the alternative theatre in London’.

Nearly all Shaw's early plays were given ‘fringe’ productions by either the Independent Theatre or the Stage Society, which coloured perceptions of Shaw's work. The Independent Theatre had staged a notorious 1891 production of Ibsen's Ghosts that created a furore, and shortly thereafter Shaw had published The Quintessence of Ibsenism. So an ‘Ibsen effect’ attached to Widowers’ Houses for the Independent's two matinées at the Royalty Theatre in 1892. The matinées were on a Friday and Tuesday, atypical days for matinées which were generally presented on Wednesdays and Saturdays. (The Stage Society productions adopted a similar policy with performances on Sunday evenings with Monday matinées.) Such circumstances limited the play's potential audience to people with leisure, with special interests, and perhaps attracted by the controversy associated with the Independent, and by its aim of staging plays of artistic and literary, rather than commercial merit. Additional problems were the play's ad hoc cast and limited, unsatisfactory rehearsals, factors that did not appeal to audiences used to well-oiled productions.

Unsurprisingly, Widowers’ Houses drew a mixed reception. While one critic claimed the play was ‘far too remarkable a work to be dismissed after a couple of performances’, others called it a lecture rather than a ‘play of general and lasting interest’, and ‘a singularly bad piece of work’.