Acclaimed writer Mark Giesser’s play The Devil May Care will have its world premiere this winter at Southwark Playhouse Borough. Inspired by George Bernard Shaw’s classic yet lesser-known play The Devil’s Disciple, Giesser’s adaptation places the action in a different conflict, the Philippine-American War at the turn of the 20th century, and re-casts the United States as the imperial aggressor. Where Bernard Shaw’s play unfolds against a backdrop of religious intolerance, Giesser’s update explores racial intolerance.
Bernard Shaw’s 1897 drama saw the United States of America as the underdog, fighting against the imperial British; Giesser’s adaptation sees the America of 1899 take its first steps to acquire an empire when it annexes the Philippine Islands. Giesser’s The Devil May Care follows Richard Conroe, a disreputable American trader, who is mistaken for a treasonous English minister and arrested. Both Conroe and the real minister’s wife, Judith, have to decide if they should reveal his true identity – potentially saving Conroe, but condemning the minister to death.
Tackling the hypocrisy and prejudices of authorities and institutions, Giesser’s tense drama also delves into the very human and personal challenges that are brought up by conflict. As Richard and Judith grapple with the moral and emotional fallout of their decisions, The Devil May Care highlights the human cost of war, prejudice and hypocrisy.
Writer and director Mark Giesser comments, Shaw’s play looked back around 120 years from his time to comment on the heavy-handed enforcement of British imperialism against a nascent United States fighting for its independence. I wanted to find a similar but different perspective to Shaw’s, so I chose the Philippine Islands war for independence against the United States, which began only a year after Shaw wrote his play and is often called ‘America’s first Vietnam’. The underdog United States of Shaw’s play has thus now become the imperial aggressor. But the core story about a man who chooses to sacrifice himself for a reason he can’t define, and a woman faced with a terrible choice about saving his life, remains the same.
