Fanny’s First Play

A young author, Fanny O’Dowda, is indulged by her conservative and aesthetic father, a wealthy Irish Count, with a private performance of her first play. Several London critics are invited to see the anonymous work which turns out to be a realistic comedy of middle-class morals. An almost-engaged couple land in jail for disorderly behavior. This shocks their parents into agreeing to an entirely different matrimonial arrangement: Bobby is to marry a “lady of joy” and Margaret becomes engaged to her parents’ footman who turns ou to be a duke’s brother. And there’s a French naval lieutenant who praises all this outrageous behavior as typically English, which of course it isn’t. Fanny’s First Play, written by George Bernard Shaw, is directed by Todd Hammond.