Routledge Library Editions: George Bernard Shaw – serie

Originally published in 1920, The Quintessence of Bernard Shaw, the title a play on Shaw’s own essay The Quintessence of Ibsenism, offered a coherent review of his ideas mainly, though not exclusively, as expressed in his plays and prefaces.

It was Shaw’s general contention that all great art was didactic; it was his specific contention that he wrote plays to convert people to his opinions on ‘Social Economy’, ‘Political Economy’ and ‘Vital Economy’. In this study of Bernard Shaw’s plays, originally published in 1971, Leon Hugo examines the implications of these contentions.Professor Hugo’s book, a lively and enthusiastic reappraisal of the literary and dramatic quality of Shaw’s plays, viewed in the light of their relationship to his social and political ideas, will be of value both as an introduction to new readers of Shaw and as a stimulus to the re-examination of many conventional and often dismissive views of his achievement as a dramatic poet.In the first part of the book, Shaw’s Fabian socialism, his political philosophy, and his belief in Creative Evolution are examined. In the second part, the author appraises Shaw’s plays by relating them to his ideas and by assessing them as ‘literature’. Among the plays discussed at length are: Mrs Warren’s Profession, Candida, Caesar and Cleopatra, Man and Superman, Major Barbara, Heartbreak House, and St Joan. In the third part an assessment is made of Shaw’s influence as a teacher and dramatist and the author argues that Shaw at his best achieves didactic and aesthetic unity in his plays.

Originally published in 1969, in Shaw – “The Chucker Out” Allan Chappelow quotes much entirely new and previously unpublished Shaw material (the fruits of six years’ research at the British Museum and elsewhere) as the basis for his aim of assisting towards a better understanding of Shaw’s controversial character and his paradoxical attitude to life – with reference particularly to certain fallacies and misconceptions voiced by the villagers of Ayot St. Lawrence (during their otherwise favourable memoirs in Shaw the Villager) and shared by the world at large.This book threw a flood of new light on Shaw and the world in which he lived. It included new examples of Shaw’s finest and noblest pronouncements as well as of his more controversial obiter dicta, and a special feature is the way in which the development of Shaw’s ideas is shown during his exceptionally long career occupying three-quarters of a century, from his first published (and unpublished) writings in 1875 till his last in 1950.Here is Shaw at his most stimulating and entertaining (even when deliberately shocking for effect!), and many of his views – on stage censorship for example, or on making strikes illegal – were as topical and relevant in 1969 as when he propounded them.In Shaw – “The Chucker Out” the reader will find (in addition to the opening chapter which presents Shaw’s printed postcards and ‘stock letter’ replies) much new material on Shaw’s attitude to peace and war, on his ‘new alphabet’ and his succession of Wills, rare love letters and other evidence of Shaw’s attitude to sex, unique speeches on the art of the theatre and on the conduct of life, and perhaps most important of all, a most fascinating panorama of Shaw’s views on the full gamut of political themes. The subjects range through Socialism and Capitalism, Christian Economics, Democracy and Dictators, Fascism and Equality of Income, Sedition, Trade Unionism, Women in Politics, and Communism.The book’s appeal is not only to those interested in Shaw and literature, but also as a general sociological and philosophical study of the main political, social, and moral outlooks of the world at the time, in which little-known views of many of Shaw’s contemporaries and critics are given as well as his own.Most people are bewildered by the conflict in life between ideals and illusions, and not a few have been perplexed by the contrast between the unquestionable brilliance of many of Bernard Shaw’s views and the sometimes facetious statements of the clown in him. Allan Chappelow skilfully sifts the wheat from the chaff; as Vera Brittain points out, this book goes a long way towards clarification, and it seemed likely to become a standard work.

In The Shavian Playground, originally published in 1972, Shaw’s plays are examined as self-contained imaginative structures intended for theatrical performance. Beginning with a consideration of his novels, the book covers the whole span of Shaw’s career as a dramatist playing special attention to critically and theatrically neglected plays, and offering fresh interpretations of others.

‘You see madam,’ Bernard Shaw once wrote, ‘I am not a dreamer who doesn’t understand the practical exigencies of the stage. …’ The remark was an understatement: Shaw not only understood the practical aspects of play production; he had a great deal of experience with them as well. For thirty years following the 1894 production of Arms and the Man, which he directed, Shaw staged virtually every production of his own plays in London. Directing plays, he consistently maintained, is as crucial a part of a playwright’s profession as writing them, and the author, he believed, is the most desirable director of his own play.Originally published in 1971, this first full-length treatment of Shaw as director is important for several reasons: first, because Shaw was one of the few major playwrights who frequently directed his own works; second, because he was a good director; and third, because he is an early example of the modern idea of the director as guiding artist in the production of a play.After an initial chapter examining Shaw’s background and experiences in the theatre before he began to direct plays, Dukore explores various aspects of Shavian directorial theory and practice. He shows that, while Shaw’s basic concern was with the actor, he was also involved in all the minute considerations that make up a successful production, including pre-rehearsal planning, casting, cutting and changing the script (though Shaw forbade other directors to cut his plays, he himself did so), conducting rehearsals, acting, scenery, lighting, and costuming. Throughout his analysis, the author makes use of previously unpublished material, particularly Shaw’s rehearsal notes, written in the auditorium when he staged his plays, and letters to actors.This is a readable book, essential for anyone interested in Bernard Shaw’s plays.

Bernards Shaw’s plays have delighted and stimulated audiences since their first appearances. Their author’s satiric view of conventions, institutions, and behavior continues unfailingly to amuse while it provokes doubts about the honesty of the social and political attitudes that underlie them.Originally published in 1973, Dukore discusses the theory of drama that is the basis of Shaw’s comedies, which present his views of mores and follies. That Shaw’s theory was coherent and comprehensive Dukore shows in Part One of this book, with supportive references to Shaw’s critical works, letters, speeches, and plays.In Part Two, using such familiar works as Candida, Pygmalion, and Back to Methuselah as well as less-known plays like “In Good King Charles’s Golden Days” to reinforce his points, Dukore analyses the discussion play – according to Shaw, the watershed of the “new drama.” Androcles and the Lion and Saint Joan, along with other plays, illustrate Shaw’s use of the prologue or prologuelike first act to create the play’s social and psychological foundations. Man and Superman and The Apple Cart are among those which exemplify the play whose frame is both detachable from its centerpiece and also functionally integrated with it. Dukore also considers at length Shaw’s reworking of other men’s plays – Shakespeare’s Cymbeline and Trebitsch’s Frau Gittas Sühne – as well as his own Major Barbara. These revisions bring into sharp focus Shaw’s perception of human nature and his principles of dramaturgy.Among others of Shaw’s plays, Dukore presents Too True To Be Good and Heartbreak House as examples of his protoexistentialism – his apprehension of the absurd and the existential as forces in life. Throughout Shaw’s plays – major and minor – Dukore sees the influence of the playwright’s socialism and supports this observation with precise examples from the works.In sum, Dukore proposes fresh perspectives from which to regard Shaw’s works for the theatre – works that were arrestingly relevant and immediate to the time.