She reasserts her preference for the 'weaker of the two' who, after a momentary uncertainty, turns out to be her husband Morell.Įarly productions and Candidamania Ultimately, Candida must choose between the two gentlemen. Morell believes Candida needs his care and protection, but the truth is quite the contrary. In his view, it is quite improper and humiliating for Candida to have to attend to petty household chores. He considers her divine, and his love eternal. Marchbanks is in love with Candida and believes she deserves something more than just complacency from her husband. Candida returns home briefly from a trip to London with Eugene Marchbanks, a young poet who wants to rescue her from what he presumes to be her dull family life. Morell is a Christian Socialist, popular in the Church of England, but Candida is responsible for much of his success. It tells the story of Candida, the wife of a famous clergyman, the Reverend James Mavor Morell.

The play is set in the northeast suburbs of London in the month of October. The Reverend James Mavor Morell-a clergyman and Candida's husbandĪ scene from a production of the play in Berlin.Miss Proserpine Garnett-Morell's secretary.The same theatre staged several other of Shaw's plays from 1904 to 1907, including further revivals of Candida. The Royal Court Theatre in London performed the play in six matinees in 1904. However, in late 1903 actor Arnold Daly had such a great success with the play that Shaw would write by 1904 that New York was seeing 'an outbreak of Candidamania'. Shaw attempted but failed to have a London production of the play put on in the 1890s, but there were two small provincial productions. The cleric is a Christian Socialist, allowing Shaw-himself a Fabian Socialist-to weave political issues, current at the time, into the story. The play questions Victorian notions of love and marriage, asking what a woman really desires from her husband. The central characters are clergyman James Morell, his wife Candida and a youthful poet, Eugene Marchbanks, who tries to win Candida's affections. The wife of a clergyman must choose between her husband and a man who idealises herĬandida, a comedy by playwright George Bernard Shaw, was written in 1894 and first published in 1898, as part of his Plays Pleasant. Katharine Cornell and Pedro de Cordoba in the 1924 Broadway production of Candida

Candida by gb shaw