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'Philanderer': Two Ways to a Shaw Thing

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From: The Washington Post
Date: 20030313
Author:Dolores Gregory

Here's a lesson for any playwright: George Bernard Shaw tossed the third act of an early play, "The Philanderer," on the advice of a leading actress. She told him it was "too radical" to be produced in the commercial theater of 1893. So Shaw wrote a more palatable ending to his comedy of sexual mores, and for his trouble waited another 12 years before any producer would touch it.

Did the new final act succeed where the first one failed? You can judge for yourself: The Washington Stage Guild's production of "The Philanderer" uses both versions. Following the model of the Hampstead Theatre in ...

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