Rewriting a rarely seen George Bernard Shaw play doesn’t really work in The Devil May Care, playing now at Southwark Playhouse
“I had an inkling from an early age that the Devil was my natural master, captain and friend.”
There’s always a slight sense of hesitation that comes with the news that a play is rarely revived, no matter how well known the writer. Such is the fate of George Bernard Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple, his first major commercial success, so perhaps aware of this, Mark Giesser has adapted it into The Devil May Care, relocated in both time and place for a contemporary audience.
Having to change so much feels like a warning sign and a further clue as to why it might not have been the most popular choice of revival comes with the inclusion of a family tree of the characters on the website, a tacit acknowledgement that the play isn’t going to make it clear enough for us. Understandable for a straight revival maybe but harder to forgive for something cited as a new play.
That family tree is recommended reading too, as the first act is punishingly difficult to follow. Originally set in the Revolutionary era, Giesser moves the action forward a century to a different conflict, The Philippine–American War of 1899, and opens on an American military brood debating a dense morass of the politics of the time, intertwined with family drama concerning as many people offstage as on.
A lethargic staging doesn’t help, static arguments sap pace and interest as presumed inheritances go to random brothers who claim to be ‘the devil’s disciple’ yet seem determined to follow a path of bafflingly self-sacrifice. Period-appropriate (as if there is such a thing) racism looms large to make much of this distasteful to hear, reducing emotional investment in a play that desperately needs it to grip the attention.
As it flounders between family affairs, ill-advised romance and commentary on US imperialism, none of these strands are granted the thematic depth to really resonate. Consequently, it makes for a tough watch despite the efforts of the cast, among whom Callum Woodhouse’s rogue Richard, Izyan Hay’s impassioned Isabel and Beth Burrows’ romantically confused Judith each have their moments.
