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DOCTOR’S DILEMMA production history

Posted by DCA Theater on April 16, 2010 in January-June 2010 Season, Doctor's Dilemma

This is the second production of The Doctor’s Dilemma at ShawChicago. The first was in 1994 during the Clinton administration’s fight for health care, and launched ShawChicago as a program of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. The current debate about the same topic seemed a good reason to take a second look at this remarkable play.

The Doctor’s Dilemma had its world premiere at the Royal Court Theater in London, opening on November 20, 1906.  It starred Lillah McCarthy as Jennifer and Harley Granville Barker as Louis Dubedat.  The play was revived at London’s Haymarket Theater in 1942 in a production that starred Vivien Leigh and Cyril Cusack. That production ran for 474 performances. It was the second longest run ever for a Bernard Shaw play (exceeded only by the premiere production of his Fanny’s First Play in 1911).  The first American production of The Doctor’s Dilemma was in New York in 1915.  It again starred Lillah McCarthy and Harley Granville Barker.  Other New York productions featured Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne (1927), Katherine Cornell and Raymond Massey (1941), and Roddy McDowell and Geraldine Fitzgerald (1955).

The first Canadian production was in Toronto in 1923 at the Princess Theater by the Cameron Matthews Players.  The Shaw Festival has produced the play three times in the past and will include it in the 2010 season.