Živnost paní Warrenové – Shaw George Bernard (2019)

This satirical play by Nobel Prize-winning writer George Bernard Shaw deals unflinchingly with prostitution. Its performance was banned in Great Britain until 1925. Mrs Warren, once a poor girl unwilling to slave in a factory for a meagre wage, becomes the owner of luxurious brothels across Europe and the employer of girls from backgrounds like her own, earning the favour and financial support of wealthy and socially prominent clients. Her daughter Vivie discovers the source of her mother’s influence and fortune after completing her studies at Cambridge University. Although she can understand her mother’s decision, she cannot accept her unwillingness to change her way of life. Vivie ultimately breaks with both her mother and her suitor and decides to support herself through her own work. Shaw’s third and final so-called unpleasant play exposes the sources of wealth and the specific connections between power, money and sex. A private performance took place in London in 1902, followed by productions in New York and New Haven in 1905 and in Prague and Berlin in 1907; the work was still considered unsuitable for performance at Paris’s Comédie-Française in 1955.