Watching The Millionairess my mind wandered back to a few other plays by George Bernard Shaw and the one that came closest to this is Major Barbara. Many of the ideas that lead character Epifania has could have come from the mouth of Edward Undershaft.
But being a woman this puts a whole different dimension to it. Shaw was born during the Victorian Age when women were put on a pedestal, but had few legal rights on either side of the pond. Our Creator/Deity may have made women different, but he did endow the same percentage of them with the same quotient of intelligence. I always thought that the crux of feminism was that group of the female population who did not like the roles assigned them, had the intelligence to see it and the will to do something about it.
Maggie Smith is such a woman as Epifania. She's got a husband in James Villiers who is cheating with Patricia Smith. That's OK because she's got the indolent Charles Gray on the side. But when he makes a crack about her sainted father she loses it good and Gray goes down a flight of stairs. More hurt in the dignity than anything else.
The nearest doctor around is an Egyptian immigrant played by Tom Baker and the two are intrigued by each other and put themselves to a money making test. It's what happens in the testing and with each that The Millionairess tells its story.
When The Millionairess opened it must have shocked British sensibilities. Just the idea of one of their wealthiest female citizens kanoodling with a Moslem doctor would have made the most complacent soul get alert. Just remember at the close of the last century how some felt about Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed. But Maggie Smith knows her mind.
Maggie Smith leads a fine ensemble cast in this production of The Millionairess. She is surely the daughter Edward Undershaft the self made munitions tycoon would like to have had.
Who would have thought George Bernard Shaw was a secret feminist?
But being a woman this puts a whole different dimension to it. Shaw was born during the Victorian Age when women were put on a pedestal, but had few legal rights on either side of the pond. Our Creator/Deity may have made women different, but he did endow the same percentage of them with the same quotient of intelligence. I always thought that the crux of feminism was that group of the female population who did not like the roles assigned them, had the intelligence to see it and the will to do something about it.
Maggie Smith is such a woman as Epifania. She's got a husband in James Villiers who is cheating with Patricia Smith. That's OK because she's got the indolent Charles Gray on the side. But when he makes a crack about her sainted father she loses it good and Gray goes down a flight of stairs. More hurt in the dignity than anything else.
The nearest doctor around is an Egyptian immigrant played by Tom Baker and the two are intrigued by each other and put themselves to a money making test. It's what happens in the testing and with each that The Millionairess tells its story.
When The Millionairess opened it must have shocked British sensibilities. Just the idea of one of their wealthiest female citizens kanoodling with a Moslem doctor would have made the most complacent soul get alert. Just remember at the close of the last century how some felt about Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed. But Maggie Smith knows her mind.
Maggie Smith leads a fine ensemble cast in this production of The Millionairess. She is surely the daughter Edward Undershaft the self made munitions tycoon would like to have had.
Who would have thought George Bernard Shaw was a secret feminist?