BERNARD SHAW PLAY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 14 January 1936, Page 10

BERNARD SHAW PLAY

WORLD PREMIERE LONDON, 4th January. There was an amusing and interesting world premiere of Mr George Bernard Shaw’s “The Millionaireness” at the State-run Akademie Theatre in Vienna, which has been the international jump-ing-off ground for many noteworthy comedies in recent years. The four acts, which were translated into German, deal with the adventures of Epiphania, who believes that money can buy anything, and tries to prove the point by attempting to buy her lovers. The role of Epiphania was brilliantly played by the red-luiired and temperamental beauty, Maria Eis, a famous Viennese actress. Epiphania inherits £30,000,000 from an English father, and marries a boxing champion, Alastair Fitzfassenden. In the opening scene, Epiphania is contemplating divorce, owing to her discovery that her husband is a mere sportsman, and not a lover. As the lawyers are unsympathetic, she flies to a modest country mu, with Adrian Blenderband. Here Epiphania lectures her lover upon the uselessness of luxury as a means to happiness, the argument ending in the heroine kicking Adrian downstairs.

Finally, Epiphania, in order to win a third lover, begins to earn her own living, as the keeper of an inn, and the successful plot provides opportunities for an endless string of Shavian aphorisms upon sex relationships, and numerous criticisms of the existing system, recalling Shaw’s Fabian days.