WingSpan Theater Company opened the rarely produced, delightful comedy, Dear Liar, the two-character play/reading enacting the 40-year correspondence between Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw and his dramatic muse, then well-known English actress, Mrs.Patrick Campbell. Shaw wrote the role of Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion specifically for Mrs. Campbell, although she was adamant that, at age 49, she was much too old to play the role of the teen-age cockney flower girl.
Mrs. Campbell began her acting career in 1888 and garnered critical praise in the role of Hedda Gabler in 1907. She was nowhere near the intellectual equal of Shaw, but he greatly admired her talent. He was nearly 10 years her senior, and from the tone of his letters, was smitten by her, primarily via long distance. As one listens to his long, erudite letters, one begins to think Shaw was more interested in his clever words than in Mrs. Campbell.
Their correspondence took place between 1899 and 1939. Shaw was awarded both a Nobel Prize in Literature (1925) and an Academy Award (1938) for Pygmalion. The principals in the WingSpan production are Lisa Fairchild and Alan Pollard. Fairchild has a commanding presence at Mrs. Campbell and seems more amused than romantic by Shaw's letters. She is the pragmatist to his idealist. Her letters are replies to his letters and include current events in her life, while his letters are exercises in romantic pedantry. Pollard displays Shaw's pomposity with relish as he enjoys the satisfaction of a letter well written. On their occasional meetings Pollard does a superb job of attempting to woo Mrs. Campbell in some comical antics. Dear Liar, unless constrained by contractual obligations on the producer, could easily be cut 15 minutes without sacrificing any part of the play. Nonetheless, the piece offers a very enjoyable tête-à-tête between a notable playwright for the ages and a notable actress of her day.
