Back On The Boards

The last time we saw Charlotte Bradley on our TV screens she was playing a detective in RTE’s phenomenally successful crime series Proof, warning a “baddie” not to move then blasting him into kingdom come because he disobeyed her. The next time we’ll see her on movie screens is playing reportedly “heart-wrenching” scenes with Andrea Corr in the The Boys From Clare which will be released later this year.

In the meantime, theatregoers can catch Charlotte’s stage “comeback” as she plays the title role, a former-prostitute-turned-madam-and-mother, in George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession which opens this week at the Cork Opera House and then tours all over Ireland before moving to Andrew’s Lane Theatre in September. At which point Bradley will also be rehearsing for her starring role in a Dublin Fringe Festival production of Ay Carmella, directed by Brian McCarthy.
But this is not only a double stage comeback for Charlotte, it’s also a return to her roots in theatre nearly 20 years after her first starring role in Passion Machine’s Wasters . Not surprisingly after four years of doing film and TV work – apart from a one-off charity performance in The Vagina Monologues – she finds it “absolutely exciting” to be back on stage.
“Because it is nearly four years since I did my last play, An Ghrain Agus An Agrain, it also is one hell of a challenge,” she says. “And it’s a different challenge than TV or film because you do have the luxury of a rehearsal period to discuss and work through a character and all the characters with the cast and the director. Film isn’t quite as cohesive a process. Nor is TV. I’m not saying working in theatre is necessarily better than working in TV or film because both those forms have their own kind of excitement, but at this point it’s really wonderfully challenging for me to be back on stage.”
The joy and excitement in being part of that process also, of course, can depend to a great degree on the theatre company, director and other actors involved. In this case Charlotte is working with Yew Tree, whose Artistic Director – and the director of Mrs Shaw’s Profession – is John Breen, author of the globally successful play Alone It Stands. The touring production is being staged in association with the Cork Opera House and Bradley’s fellow actors are Robert O’ Mahoney, Mal White, Gillian McCarthy, Malcolm Adams and Sean McDonagh.
So what about the play itself? Mrs Warren’s Profession is one of the earliest works of a playwright who is still too often seen as a propagandist-polemicist-feminist but who was actually was the finest exponent of satirical comedy since Aristophanes. Bradley sees the comedic aspects of this work as “absolutely essential” to the way the moral questions are posed in this play and she is clearly impassioned about its subject matter.
“I believe that when we open our hearts in laughter we are more open in general and Mrs Warren’s Profession is so witty, so sharp that it is a delight to play at that level” she says. “But you have to remember that Shaw wrote this play in 1902 and it was banned until 1925 because it dealt with prostitution and was as such, considered an ‘immoral’ play. But it’s theme is not prostitution. It’s about morality and integrity and built around the relationship between Mrs Warren and her daughter, who knows nothing about her mother’s life because she’s been sheltered from all of that.
“They are alike, but they are on different sides of the moral fence so the question is whether or not the daughter can accept her mother’s choices. But the theme is about integrity in society because society has created the circumstances that led women into prostitution. Also, at the time Mrs Warren’s Profession was written, women were very vulnerable and, in a way, prostituted themselves by marrying for money or lived in penury and were forced into prostitution. That’s still a relevant theme in 2004. Particularly in terms of prostitution on a global level and even here in Ireland where there is a growing problem with sex slavery in relation to women coming into this country from Eastern Europe or wherever.”
“People who come to see this play should leave feeling responsible” she concludes. “And that they are part of some ongoing debate.”

Mrs Warren’s Profession is currently running at the Cork Opera House and will then play in Galway, Ballina, Letterkenny, Sligo, Castlebar and Dublin. Check local press for details.