Continuing its commitment to the work and ideals of George Bernard Shaw, the 19-year-old Gingold Theatrical Group (GTG) is putting its spin on one of Shaw’s earliest plays, The Devil’s Disciple. If you don’t know the play, you’re not alone; it’s certainly one of his least-produced—especially compared with, say, Pygmalion, Man and Superman, and Mrs. Warren’s Profession. The 1897 play—his only full-length play set in America—did, however, mark Shaw’s first commercial success.
For this clever Theatre Row production, GTG artistic director David Staller has whittled the script down to its bare essentials (final running time: 100 minutes) and distributed every role among a crackerjack quintet of women, who simply play the (mostly male) characters as written. And it works. (Fellow directors, take note.) He has added a narrator (Folami Williams), who greets us in the attic of a run-down New Hampshire home she’s just inherited. “Built in the 1770s. No, it’s not in great shape. The roof is leaking, the floors are creaking, in short: it’s falling apart.” The shabby-chic set, with its shiplap wood planks peeking through peeling wallpaper, by Lindsay Genevieve Fuori is an absolute gem (Chip and Joanna Gaines would have a field-day with this fixer-upper). While she considers renovation vs. demolition, she reads us an American Revolution–era story out of a journal written by Judith Anderson—a character in Shaw’s play.
Of course, Shaw didn’t write The Devil’s Disciple from Judith’s perspective, but he did support equal rights; surely he wouldn’t mind GTG giving Judith such agency. The journal is our portal into the year 1777, in Websterbridge, N.H., into the home of newly minted widow Mrs. Dudgeon (Susan Cella). Adding insult to injury: Her husband has bequeathed the family home to their black-sheep son Richard “Dick” Dudgeon (Nadia Brown, full of swagger), aka the Devil’s Disciple. He explains the menacing moniker: “I knew from the first that the only way to survive in my mother’s house would be to question everything, to challenge everything. And that is exactly what they are most afraid of. Thinking for yourself. So the Devil, the renegade, was my natural master and captain and friend.”
Also on the scene are the Reverend Anthony Anderson (Tina Chilip) and his wife, the aforementioned Judith (Williams again), who’s both scandalized and intrigued by the local self-proclaimed Devil. When a British soldier (Teresa Avia Lim) comes to arrest Rev. Anderson, Dick ends up taking the parson’s place, causing us to wonder—is he really all that evil? Isn’t he just brash and rebellious and contrarian, all things that the colonists hate?
The arrival of a couple more redcoats—including the hoity-toity General Burgoyne, aka Gentlemanly Johnny (Cella)—before Dick/Anthony’s scheduled hanging provides an opportunity for some clever banter. The Brits are nothing if not civilized, even in wartime. When the prisoner pleads to be put to death via firing squad, Burgoyne can only sigh. “Have you any idea of the average marksmanship of the army of His Majesty King George the Third?… Half of them will miss you: the rest will make a mess of the business and leave you to the provo-marshal’s pistol. Whereas we can hang you in a perfectly workmanlike and agreeable way. Let me persuade you to be hanged, Mr. Anderson,” explains the gentlemanly general. Note Burgoyne’s snazzy uniform. In lieu of replicating actual military seals and medals, costume designer Tracy Christensen uses rhinestone brooches pinned to the redcoats to signify the heraldic insignia.
We won’t say who does or doesn’t get hanged, but it’s no spoiler to say that we end up back in the ramshackle attic, and our narrator does a bit of modern-day moralizing using phrases such as “we have a responsibility” and “we have work to do.” The house metaphor didn’t need to be so heavy-handed.
The Devil’s Disciple opened Nov. 3, 2024, and runs through Nov. 23. Tickets and information: gingoldgroup.org
