USU Theatre Arts to stage George Bernard Shaw’s comic ‘Misalliance’

LOGAN – After performing a string of very contemporary plays this year, the Theatre Arts Department at Utah State University is returning to the classics to present Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw.

In Misalliance, Shaw asks – and pretty conclusively answers — the age-old question about who is the pursuer and who is pursued in male-female relationships.

Like many of Shaw’s works, the theme of the play was controversial in post-Victorian England when Misalliance was written in the early 1900s. Nowadays, it seems charmingly amusing in a nostalgic sort of way.

But Shaw’s savage wit still brilliantly shines through this comedy of manners, making Misalliance a favorite choice of modern directors.

The plot of Misalliance revolves around a half-dozen or so misguided proposals of marriage that all take place in the English drawing room of a wealthy man’s home in Surrey within the space of a single summer afternoon.

Most of those proposals are fairly conventional affairs, until a Polish aviatrix and her handsome buddy crash the party – literally, through the ceiling. Then things become, shall we say, complicated?

The cast, directed by Leslie Brott, is entirely made up of talented, veteran USU actors.

Ashlynn Rober is cast as Hypatia Tarleton, the heiress to a less-than-glamorous — but very lucrative — underwear empire. Her father and mother are played by Ben Quiroz and Grace Garner.

Willoughby Staley appears as Bentley Summerhays, Hypatia’s intended – at first.

Jack Carter Roberts plays Lord Summerhays, who also has eyes for Hypatia.

Andrew Moody will play the uninvited guest Joey Percival, while the versatile McKenna Walwyn is cast as his aerial companion Lina Szczepanowska.

Rounding out the cast are Nicole Frederick as Johnny Tarleton and Summer Shoell as the socialist assassin Gunner.

In Misalliance, Shaw satirizes the mismatched mating instincts of those typical English characters against the backdrop of a young woman’s desire to escape the stifling confines of the Victorian Era’s standards for her gender, which include helplessness, passivity, stuffy propriety and total non-involvement in politics or business.

Given our current debates about gender fluidity, Misalliance is still a very relevant show today, more than 100 years after Shaw penned it.

Misallianace is slated for evening presentations at 7:30 p.m. on April 14 to 22 in the Morgan Theatre of the Chase Fine Arts Building on the USU campus.

A matinee perform of Misalliance will also be presented at 1 p.m. on Saturday, April 15.

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