Shaw’s ‘Heartbreak House’ @ Hip Pocket Theatre

Photos by Shannon Atkinson

—Jan Farrington

George Bernard Shaw’s characters seldom seem “old-timey.” They’re unusual, for sure, but often feel surprisingly contemporary, as though they might find places—and hold their own—in our world. In the darkest days of World War I, Shaw wrote a play he called Heartbreak House, remembering a country-house life (his “Russian fantasia” on Chekhov) that was about to blow up in their faces. There are plenty of laughs in this play at Hip Pocket Theatre…but we start to sense that the house is coming apart.

“When the play was begun,” wrote Shaw, “not a shot had been fired; and only the professional diplomatists and the very few amateurs whose hobby is foreign policy even knew that the guns were loaded.” But they were loaded—and in Heartbreak House the lounge chairs and teapots of the play’s languid opening are smashed to splinters by its end.

GBS, never one to pull punches, packs a wallop in the bantering, doom-saying, sprawling play. It’s a comic, sharp-elbowed take-apart of British society on the brink of life-changing events. And though the playwright is in top form, he’s also, clearly, in a white-hot Shavian temper.

What does he see going wrong? It might sound familiar: the clashing of left and right, traditionalists and progressives—and the constant, nerve-shredding noise of two populations in one country, pitted against one another. Factions, grievances, everyone talking, no one listening—and a gruff old man in the middle roaring about how feckless, graceless, and worthless they are. (In case those adjectives sound familiar, another British work of the time gives those names to a farmer’s trio of cows.)

And nobody knows what to do or who to follow. No wonder the old man built his home away from The City in coastal countryside.

Heartbreak House is hard to describe—and well worth seeing in this thoughtful, well-acted production. Director Emily Scott Banks (who also adapted Shaw’s script) uses the high-energy cast to great effect: conversations are full of bluster, posing, quips, digs, and declarations. But too, Banks takes care to show us the layers of the play: the goofy, long-running family dynamic; the house-party rhythms that mix with sky “drumming” and other portents; and Shaw’s signature blend of upper crust and intelligentsia, tradesmen and diplomats, idealists, socialites and socialists—all under one roof and at odds. The world needs help, and we’re not sure this is the crowd to provide it.

With so much going on in the dialogue, the action might as well stay put. So it flows around the ship-shaped house (portholes, decks, and its very own skipper) built on land by retired Captain Shotover. (Scenic design by Allen Dean, with dandy period costumes from Susan Austin.) The house is Brittannia, the ship of state, of course, and still afloat—but Shotover (Niko Corolla) is getting older by the year, and “floundering” is the perfect word for this floating-island house, its inhabitants, and the sinking feeling that keeps them awake at night.

The Captain (Corolla is the right mercurial mix for the old gent) is an inventor on the side, but disillusioned that his life-saving inventions never pulled in much interest—only his destructive ones. Daughter Hermione (Aaron Dias) and flirty lightweight husband Hector (James Warila) live at the house (they’re party-hearty types, each with a side-eye for the opposite sex).

Daughter Addy (aka Lady Utterwood, played by Kate Winnubst) has dropped in for a rare visit. She’s spent her life running around the empire with her ditzy diplomat husband Lord Utterwood (Cameron Martinez), and expected to return to the same orderly England of her girlhood. But no. Longtime servant/nurse Mrs. Guinness (Kristi Ramos Toler) calls her “ducky” now, and isn’t too quick with her tea.

Into the family circle comes a visitor, young Ellie Dunn (Adia Best), an opinionated but well-mannered young woman who might (or might not) be engaged to yet another visitor, Boss Mangan, a rising, tough-guy business owner involved with Ellie’s father (Gary Payne). And by the minute, Shaw reveals more intriguing details of how this mismatched crew is linked, and just why (and by whom) Ellie was invited.

The characters pair up in fascinating conversations, and try one another out as useful connections, rivals, possible friends or lovers. The Captain and Ellie become a central focus of the story. strong-minded souls who recognize one another. We come to see that they might, in some future, go places together and get things done, though it’s hardly a traditional pairing. Best is vivid and practical in the part; her Ellie is self-propelled, smart, and speaks her mind in the best way. And Corolla’s temperamental Captain hasn’t given up on life entirely; Ellie might know how to get him back on track. She’d egg him on and pull him back in equal measures—and he’d do the same for her.

Dias is electric as the dramatic, unstoppable socialite Hermione, with Warila as husband Hector fluttering around in costume (Lawrence of Arabia for the win?) being mostly ignored. Winnubst’s Lady Utterwood fans herself and talks trash about modern times—and if her comically vacant husband (Martinez) knows anything at all about politics and governance, I’d be stunned. Mark Duke Dalton lets us both admire and dislike the swindling businessman Mangan, but Shaw didn’t give him the charm of some of his earlier “tycoon” characters (perhaps he was disgusted with them by then), and we don’t root for him.

On the other hand, Ellie’s no-head-for-business father (Gary Payne) is an old socialist and leftie who opened a company…and regretted it. Payne makes him warm, wonderfully kind, and an idealist we can admire, though Shotover and the others believe life will squash him like a bug. And Nurse Guinness (Toler) is Olde England itself: insular, suspicious, loyal only to the few she loves—and happy to curse anyone else to a terrible fate.

I wondered, toward the last scene, if Thornton Wilder thought of Heartbreak House when he was writing The Skin of Our Teeth in the early years of World War II: humanity keeping on, or trying to, through the growingly surreal and chaotic times.

“Oh Captain, my Captain!” calls Ellie at a tough moment. A trusty hand on the wheel sounds nice—but don’t count on it, says GBS.

WHEN: September 5-28, 2025
WHERE: 1950 Silver Creek Road, Fort Worth
WEB: hippocket.org