MISALLIANCE

“Paul Miller’s expertly cast, wonderfully well performed, and entirely – at times convulsively – entertaining revival of Misalliance… a treasurable, scintillating gem.” Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph

“a play Shaw wrote in 1909 that moves from disquisitory drama to anarchic comedy and that offers as much intellectual stimulus as anything you’re likely to see this Christmas.” Michael Billington, The Guardian

“Paul Miller’s high-energy production is exhilarating”
Tom Wicker, The Stage

A Surrey conservatory, a summer afternoon: marriage is in the air. So far, so conventional.

Hypatia Tarleton, uneasily engaged to bright yet immature aristocrat Bentley Summerhays, longs for adventure to drop out of the sky. And with a sudden crash of glass, it does.

Enter Lina Szczepanowska, Polish acrobat and daredevil pilot whose independent spirit galvanises the household.

Meanwhile, an unhappy cashier also infiltrates this Hindhead idyll, bearing a grievance and a gun…

By the end of the day, eight marriages have been proposed. But which are the misalliances?

If marriages were made by putting all the men’s names into one sack and the women’s names into another, and having them taken out by a blind-folded child like lottery numbers, there would be just as high a percentage of happy marriages as we have now.

One of Shaw’s most playful and inventive early comedies about class and Feminism gets its first major revival in 30 years.

Paul Miller directs following his acclaimed productions of Shaw’s The Philanderer and Widowers’ Houses at the Orange Tree.

Running time 2 hours 45 minutes, including a 20 minute interval

An Orange Tree Theatre production

Production photos by Helen Maybanks