The plays of George Bernard Shaw are arguably as intellectually challenging as they are dramatically long-winded. But this one, written in 1912, as directed by the Festival's new artistic director Tim Carroll, puts Shaw’s witty exercise in Christian morality vs pagan demagoguery into an extraordinarily playful arena. During the progress of Androcles and the Lion, audience members become co-contributors with the actors as their own stories of become mixed into Shaw's verbose text. The feeling of a parlor game is created from the beginning with the breakdown of the fourth wall as actors leave the stage and enter at first as themselves asking for a volunteer to read from the script and someone to play the Lion. At any rate, the play, in which Androcles pulls a thorn out of lion's paw but soon finds himself with a group of Christians waiting to be eaten by lions in the Roman Coliseum, becomes fun—if you don't mind the game cast messing around with Shaw and invading your comfort zone. This production could be a way to introduce precocious children to Shaw. Purists may suffer some pain, but others, like myself, will say "how refreshing"....I'm no martyr but I've been saved.
