Smash: An Adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Novel An Unsocial Socialist (review)

In the late 1880s, a young George Bernard Shaw industriously produced one unsuccessful novel after another, the last of which, An Unsocial Socialist, was a self-deprecating satire on the values of his beloved Fabian Society. Perhaps part of the reason these initial literary forays were failures was due to Shaw’s own admittedly weak plot construction. It took the advice of critic William Archer and his observations of theatre for Shaw to understand the importance of strong dramatic structure, which would eventually help transform him into a Nobel Prize–winning author. But even though Shaw would later publicly dismiss his early literary efforts, the potential for satisfying storytelling was still intrinsic in his last novel’s crackling dialog and gripping themes. Unearthing the format of a classic well-made play, Jeffrey Hatcher’s Smash, and the Asolo Rep production of it, breathes new life into this overlooked Shaw work.

As the curtain rose at the Mertz Theatre, the endearing strains of Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” quickly turned discordant, the instruments going flat and sharp, followed by the sound of shattering glass. This served as a fitting metaphor for the inciting incident of the play: the end of a marriage only twenty minutes after the nuptials. Hatcher uses this event as a launching point for the well-made play’s requisite exposition, during which Sidney Trefusis explains to his new bride Henrietta that he must leave her in order to promote his socialist agenda and to bring down the English government for the good of proletariats everywhere. The fact that he himself is a millionaire is only one of the many comic paradoxes in the piece. The setting quickly turns to the Alton College for Girls, a glorified charm school for well-to-do young women. Here Sidney has morphed into an industrious Cockney groundskeeper named Mengels (a mash-up of Marx and Engels). The creation of this alias provides another one of the key ingredients of the well-made play: the secret on which the plot hinges. Sidney has taken on this identity in order to convert the young scholars to socialism, knowing full well they are being groomed to marry Britain’s rich and powerful. When one of the students, Agatha Wylie, participates in a youthful act of defiance against her overbearing headmistress, Sidney sees an opportunity to begin his revolution. He enlists Agatha and her young cohorts in a scheme to wrest control of the school, partly by supplanting the capitalist pedagogy with

Kris Danford (Henrietta), Julie Lachance (Agatha), Jessie Blue Gormezano (Jane), and Jennifer Logue (Gertrude) in Smash: An Adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s Novel An Unsocial Socialist. Photo: Julia Guzman.

his socialist teachings, and partly by scheming to pay the villagers five pounds each to revolt and smash down the walls of the college.

Act 2 escalates the dramatic tension and rising action when Henrietta arrives at the college to visit her cousin Agatha and quickly sees through Sidney’s disguise. To further complicate matters, Agatha falls madly in love with Sidney, creating an amusing love triangle. Meanwhile Henrietta plays the part of the pining wife to her advantage, seducing Sidney into a temporary repose then handcuffing him to a teacart. It is here that Hatcher employs the device of the scene a fair, wherein a character discloses an important revelation, in this case Henrietta’s diabolical plan for revenge on Sidney. This leads to a hilarious climatic turning point where she makes a mockery of his revolution by leading the townspeople in a drunken attack on the college, getting them to sing “99 Bottles of Beer” instead of the socialist anthem, “The International.”

Act 3 brings a traditional denouement, complete with the pairing off of secondary characters into couples and Sidney’s overdue comeuppance. But rather than tying up the play in a neat package...