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Mrs. Warrens Profession

If you have a chance to see this play, or at least read it, do so. Tell me if it shocks you or not. Would you make the choice that the daughter, Vivian, makes?

I'm reading through the apologia -- the preface that George Bernard Shaw wrote. I can't explain why, but I love it.

Reading biographies of long-ago entertainers, like Josephine Baker and Louise Brooks. This play was mentioned in a biography of Sarah Bernhardt, an important French actress. La Dame aux Camélias (a play she starred in) glamorizes the demimonde, and Mrs. Warren's Profession was written against it, against the whole idea that prostitution is somehow romantic and special.

Show biz 100 years ago was much like it is now - drugs, hookers, sleeping your way to the top, etc. Celebrities, especially politicians and actors, had train-wreck lives long before film was invented.

In a way, it's nice to know that vice isn't a 21st-century invention. It seems to be hand-in-hand with fame and fortune. sad