Word: heartbreaking
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...character. "Oh, this is a crazy house," wails another. "Is this England, or is it a madhouse?" a third laments. What kind of house is it? It may not have been a full house but it was certainly an appreciative one attending the opening of George Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House. For three hours, lunacy reigned withing the austere decor of Dunster dining hall: a long-lost daughter dropped in, a practical businessman dropped out, a host of curious and spurious extramarital relations grew entangled...
...that we're better than we really are?" And to top it off, there is mad Captain Shotover endlessly traversing the stage in search of the seventh degree of concentration, leaving behind him a wake of nonsensical criticism, and them harrumphing back across the stage with still more. Yes, Heartbreak House is a madhouse--but it is England as well...
...this point Shaw is explicit. In his preface to the play, he calls Heartbreak House "cultured, leisured Europe before the war." Elsewhere he dodges the issue of what it all means: "How should I know? I am only the author." Shaw subtitled the play "A Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes" as homage to Anton Chekhov, whose Three Sisters appeared earlier this semester at the Loeb. The imprint of Chekhov's style is apparent in Shaw's reliance on dialogue, rather than physical action or plot development, to express characterization and the atmosphere of pre-war England...
With the aid of an outstanding cast, director Daniel Sherman and producer Rick Livingston have rendered admirably Shaw's light-hearted pandemonium and his apocalyptic vision of a new European class consciousness. Although the characters in Heartbreak House loosely represent symbolic roles in English society, they consistently refuse to be stereotyped. As the play progresses, each character develops, gradually revealing more and more depth. In the end, Shaw's portraits remain ambiguous and a challenge to decipher, leaving nuances of their portrayal up to the discretion of the director and actors...
BECAUSE this Dunster House Drama Society production tends toward the light-hearted and comic event, the two most malevolent characters are evoked sympathetically. Therefore, the members' of Heartbreak House failure to show alarm or despair at the deaths of Mangan, the deceitful businessman, and Billy Dunn, the burglar and ex-pirate, is not credible...