SCR Director Takes Positive View on Shaw’s ‘You Never Can Tell’

When Theodore Mann revived “You Never Can Tell” in New York 3 years ago, he believed that George Bernard Shaw’s turn-of-the-century comedy had been “unjustly neglected” and was wonderfully apt for our time.

“Take away the costumes and this is a contemporary play in its ideas,” he told a New York Times reporter, noting that the piece hadn’t been done on Broadway in almost 40 years.

David Emmes, who saw the revival, is directing “You Never Can Tell” at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, where it will open Friday on the Mainstage. Unlike Mann, however, he maintains that Shaw’s comedy “is very much a play of its period.”

The playwright himself had a contradictory opinion. Before the piece was produced, he wondered whether it was readable. After it became a success, he found it actor-proof. “It maddens me,” he wrote, not least because he had created it chiefly as a commercial vehicle for London’s West End.

“You Never Can Tell” unfolds in 1896 in an English seaside resort where Mrs. Clandon, an expatriate feminist author of how-to books, has arrived from Madeira with her three children: Gloria, also a staunch feminist, who is so mesmerizing that men fall in love with her on sight, and the mischievous twins Philip and Dolly.

Verging on farce at times, the play has two main stories. One involves the twins’ discovery of their long-lost father and the conflict that rekindles between their parents. The other involves the romantic pursuit of Gloria by a penniless bachelor dentist named Valentine, which is characterized as a sexual duel.

Indeed, Shaw takes a certain pleasure in satirizing some of the very causes he unswervingly advocated, such as feminism. For instance, both Gloria and Mrs. Clandon come in for mild though obvious teasing as prototypical models of the New Woman, particularly Mrs. Clandon.

She has written a popular series of so-called “Twentieth Century Treatises,” without which “no household is complete,” Philip mocks. They are entitled “Twentieth Century Cooking,” “Twentieth Century Creeds,” “Twentieth Century Clothing,” “Twentieth Century Conduct,” “Twentieth Century Children,” “Twentieth Century Principles” and so on.

“Read them, Mr. Valentine,” Philip advises. “They’ll improve your mind.”

“But not till we’ve gone, please,” says Dolly.

“We prefer people with unimproved minds,” Philip adds. “Our own minds have successfully resisted all our mother’s efforts to improve them.”

Needless to say, Gloria is the ultimate improvement or, as the twins refer to her, “the Woman of the Twentieth Century.”

Others in the cast include Valentine’s dyspeptic landlord, Mrs. Clandon’s pious solicitor, a beatific but lowly waiter whose philosophical remark--”You never can tell”--gives the play its title, and the waiter’s son, a high-and-mighty barrister with authority and wisdom to spare.

The variety of characters enables Shaw to tweak different segments of class-conscious English society. But although “he makes sport of everybody,” Emmes says, “the play ultimately jibes with the feeling of opportunity for all of the characters.”

Why did Shaw aim for a commercial vehicle, a theatrical goal he claimed to despise? When he penned the play in 1896, he was still smarting from the rejection of two previous efforts--”The Philanderer,” which had failed to find a producer, and “Mrs. Warren’s Profession,” which had been censored by the lord chamberlain.

Those two “plays unpleasant,” as Shaw dubbed them, had dealt with certain “social horrors.” The former exposed “the grotesque sexual compacts” between husbands and wives, and the latter dramatized the idea that an entire category of prostitutes--from “lawyers, doctors, clergymen and platform politicians” to “rich men without conviction”--was more dangerous to society than “poor women without chastity.”

In “You Never Can Tell,” as Shaw has pointed out in its preface, he chose to deal “less with the crimes of society, and more with its romantic follies and with the struggles of individuals against those follies.” First produced in 1899, the play was grouped for publication with three other “plays pleasant”--”Arms and the Man,” “Candida” and “The Man of Destiny.”

Although some critics claim that the sunny Victoriana of “You Never Can Tell” is too formulaic and thus makes for lightweight Shaw, Emmes says he believes otherwise. He goes so far as to single out its cheerful ambiance as a special virtue.

“This play has all the usual things you can say about Shaw--the tremendous wit, the tremendous language, the tremendous themes,” Emmes says. “But more than anything, what attracts me on a personal level is that it espouses a philosophy of hope. It takes a very positive view of life.”

The attraction is an old one, moreover. Emmes has been drawn to Shaw’s sunny side virtually from the time he and Martin Benson co-founded SCR. During the theater company’s third season, in 1966, Emmes staged “Candida.” The following year he did “Arms and the Man.” That leaves “The Man of Destiny” as the only “play pleasant” he hasn’t done, and Emmes said he has no plans to do it because “it’s really a long one-act.”

In all, there have been seven Shaw productions at SCR. Benson did “Major Barbara” twice--in 1965 and 1983--and a prize-laden “Misalliance” two seasons ago. “Saint Joan” was staged by guest director John Allison in 1984.

George Bernard Shaw’s “You Never Can Tell” is on the Mainstage at South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Preview performances continue today through Thursday at reduced prices. Tickets: $13 to $17. The regular run begins Friday. Tickets: $19 to $26. Curtain: Tuesday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 7:30 p.m. For information: (714) 957-4033.