Thank you for accepting the role of Sheila Birling in our theatre company’s version of John B Priestley’s ‘An Inspector Calls’. I have enclosed the entire script to help you prepare for the role. Also, in this letter you will find some notes that I have done for you to help you play the character and also give you a little background information about when the play is set. Your costume will obviously be a dress typical of the time – 1912. It might be an evening gown, as the play is set at a celebratory dinner, so you must be dressed up and looking nice in an expensive-looking dress. I would suggest a dress in a pastel pink colour, if possible, to emphasise that at the beginning of the play Sheila is extremely innocent, as she has been shielded from unpleasant aspects of life.
The play is set in the summer of 1912, in an industrial city called Brumley. This was in the Edwardian age, a few years before the First World War and in the same year as the Titanic sank. Mr. Birling refers to both of these incidents in the play, so they are relevant. Around 1912, there was a clear division between the middle class and the lower class. There were so many rules in society, telling you how to behave.
The middle class also had a lot more freedom and many more luxuries than lower class people did. Society was very hypocritical in 1912. Eric mentions that the ‘respectable’ men that his father knows are actually paying lower class prostitutes for their services. However, they would never dream of talking to these lower class people normally – so they had many secrets. At this time, women had no equal rights – they were overpowered by the men. Middle class women in particular were thought of as not being able to handle certain aspects of life, such as prostitution and politics. Women were also thought of as inferior and unintelligent.
This play begins at a celebration dinner. Everybody is very happy and pleased for Sheila and Gerald Croft as they are celebrating their engagement. Arthur Birling is particularly pleased, as he believes that this engagement will cause his company – Birling and Company, and Crofts Limited to become a partnership, stopping the rivalry between them. Edna, the Birlings’ maid, comes and interrupts the conversation between Mr. Birling, Gerald and Eric, saying that an inspector is at the door to see Mr. Birling.
Thinking it is just to sort out a warrant, this does not unnerve him. The Inspector, Inspector Goole, tells them that a girl named Eva Smith died that day in the Infirmary after drinking disinfectant, and he has to come to question Mr. Birling about her. When they are piecing her tragic story together, the entire family and Gerald Croft discover that they all knew Eva, and contributed to her committing suicide. At the end, Sheila realises that Inspector Goole was not actually a real inspector and everyone except Sheila and Eric are extremely relieved, pretending that nothing wrong has happened. Then Mr. Birling gets a phone call saying that a girl has just died at the Infirmary from drinking disinfectant (like Eva’s story) and an inspector is coming to question them…
My view is that the Birlings are not a close family. Neither of the parents knew about Eric’s drinking. Even Sheila mentions that she and Gerald will have to start over and get to know each other again, and he is her fianc! She feels that he is a stranger, now that she knows about his relationship with Eva, and she has grown from this experience too – she is a different person to the one we saw at the beginning.
Mr. and Mrs. Birling are completely wrapped up in their own lives and just care about their image and not about Eva, who suffered so much. They don’t regret what they have done. The younger members of their family do, though – Sheila and Eric, showing that they can grow and mature. Gerald, although he says sorry to Sheila, also carries on as if the incident with the Inspector never happened, once they all realise that Inspector Goole wasn’t a real inspector, and no Eva Smith died in the Infirmary. He even asks Sheila to put the engagement ring back on after all that has happened. I feel that Gerald is exactly like Mr. and Mrs. Birling – self-involved and greedy.
There are several themes in this play. Mr. Birling mentions that ‘a man has to make his own way – has to look after himself’. This play proves that this is not correct, with the help of the characters of the Inspector and Sheila. It teaches you that if you don’t care for everyone else, horrible things can happen in their lives – what you are and what you do has a knock-on, chain reaction effect on everyone else. It is saying that we are connected in one body. For example, if Mr. Birling had never fired Eva from his company, Sheila would never have got her fired from Milwards, and so on. Also, that firing Eva seemed like a small thing at a time, but it grew much bigger; so much bigger that she ended up committing suicide. Everyone in this play had something to hide, especially their involvement with Eva. In other words, respectability is only a thin veneer.
Sheila’s character is used as a dramatic device, to show you that people can change their attitudes and learn from their mistakes. All of the themes in his plays are universal and still apply today. In his plays, Priestley also likes to mess around with time – this is how Inspector Goole fits in. Goole, sounding exactly like the word ghoul, could mean that the Inspector is a ghost from the future – like the Christmas future ghost in ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens.
Sheila is a pretty girl in her early twenties, very pleased with life and rather excited, especially about her marriage to Gerald Croft. Her mother brought her up the ‘proper’ way of the time – to believe that men sometimes had better things to do than be with their partners, and that women could not handle things like business and politics, because they were too stupid. She is extremely innocent too – she has been shielded from the unpleasant aspects of life, such as prostitution, and does not appreciate or realise how hard it would be to live as a lower class citizen. She has also been brought up to be angelic and polite – always saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and never answering her parents back.
