Play Doctors Perform Surgery on "Heartbreak House"

It's a variation on the old philosophical question that begins, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it..."

The question raised by the current Roundabout Theatre production of George Bernard Shaw's "Heartbreak House" is:

If a character is excised from a play and no one notices, does it nevertheless violate the author's intentions?

The answer: YES.

Ever the college English major, I decided to prep for my recent night at the theater by re-reading the play, which I had seen many years ago. Imagine my surprise when "The Burglar" (aka "The Pirate" or Billy Dunn) never appeared, let alone served his literary purpose as a comically pragmatic foil to the charmingly frivolous, self-indulgent members of the Shotover household. He is also meant to be correlated with the real pirate of the piece, the self-important but eventually unmasked Boss Mangan, Shaw's stereotypic capitalist. At the end of Shaw's full version of the play, the thief and the businessman together meet a violent death, as they seek shelter from bombs in a gravel pit. Mangan blows up alone in the current production. The rest of the characters, fully exposed and energized by the excitement, are spared. (Have I just spoiled the ending?)

Nowhere is this textual expurgation mentioned in the program distributed to audience members. Nor have I seen it discussed in any of the several reviews I have read. Admittedly it's a long play, and more than one audience member gave up after the slow first act (in which Billy Dunn does not appear). But if they're going to shorten it, they should at least tell us.

Although Dunn is a secondary character, Shaw puts him to good use, intertwining his checkered past with the histories of the master of the house, Captain Shotover (who talks about him, early in the play), and his servant (to whom the burglar had once been married). Dunn provides both comic relief and additional insights into the character of the Captain, whom he says "can divine water, spot gold, explode a cartridge in your pocket and see the truth hidden in the heart of man."

Such an otherwise splendid production should have given Shaw his full measure of verbiage.