slides on George Bernard Shaw's play, Major Barbara, first performed in 1905.

1. G. Bernard Shaw,
Major Barbara (1905)

2. • Place cards and
images from
1930s stage and
film productions

3. G. Bernard Shaw “GBS”
(1856-1950)
• b. in Dublin, Ireland / spends most of his life in England
• Mom leaves unhappy marriage for exciting singing
career in London/life w/ her music tutor
• GBS chooses to move to London w/ mom and sisters
• Learns arts/humanities from mom’s new man, G.
Vandeleur Lee
• Education—bored w/ technical/clerical schools. G. V.
Lee introduces him to the arts: music, theater,
literature
• In his 20s, studies in British Library—supported by his
mom (compare w/ August Wilson)
• Decides to become a writer addressing social issues:
• Starts w/ novels, but MUCH more successful as
playwright
• Vegetarian and teetotaller
• Shaw’s plays feature strong-willed women,
unconventional ideas, intense debates
GBS, 1880s/90s

4. GBS and the Fabian Society:
 Socialist Debating Group
 Shaw helps create it (1882)
 Named for Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus
 known for strategy of indirectly confronting the enemy—
weakening its force by harassing it, instead of confronting
it head on.
 Fabian ideas:
 Unregulated individualistic competition responsible
for society’s injustices
 Work within the government system to reform society
 Reform for Collective Good: local political and union
organization, England’s Labour Party
 Fabian methods:
 non-violent, calm, rational, fact-based debate
 opposed emotional and violent tactics practiced by
radical anarchist groups in the 1880s/90s
 Example: 1894 bombing of the Prime Meridian outside
London
 Still exists as a “political think tank”:
http://www.fabians.org.uk/
Shaw in
1905/1908

5. Stained Glass Window designed by G. B. Shaw, made by
Caroline Townshend to commemorate the Fabian Society

6. • GBS as public speaker, stump
orator—streetcorners/city parks
• Shaw often caricatured in public speaking
roles: tall, lanky, fiery red beard
• “Stump speakers” like Shaw still
hold forth in London on Hyde Park
Speaker’s Corner. Some of the
speakers welcome heckling/debate
• 1880s: works as drama critic,
discovers Henrik Ibsen:
– Norwegian playwright—plays address
social reform
– Ibsen’s plays, The Doll’s House and
Hedda Gabler (about women trapped
in unhappy marriages for class
status, who break free)
– Shaw admires Ibsen’s strong feminist
drama,
• develops unusually independent female
characters for the stage

7. Often Performed Plays by Shaw
(a selection from over 50)
• Pygmalion
• Arms and the Man
• Mrs. Warren’s Profession
• Widower’s Houses
• Candida
• Heartbreak House
– (often compared w/ Ibsen’s Doll House)
• Man and Superman
• Saint Joan
– (re Joan of Arc)Nobel Prize in Literature

8. • Pygmalion
(Shaw’s most famous
play):
• 1910s stage,
• 1930s film,
• 1960s hit musical My
Fair Lady

9. Shaw’s Political Plays of Ideas
• Shaw’s playwrighting: 1890s-1940s
• Rejects “art-for-arts sake”
• Instead: art, literature, theater should
aim to change society
• Art should be didactic (teach a
lesson/reform)
• Shaw’s plays: characters in heated
debates
– Hegelian Dialectic:
thesis-antithesissynthesis
– Work to find synthesis/common ground between
two stubbornly oppositional views

10. Antitheses I
• Major Barbara
– Salvation Army
commitment to social
cause of poor relief,
education, reform
vs.
• Andrew Undershaft
– Global Weapons
Manufacturer, aims
to eliminate poverty
altogether via pursuit
of wealthArms/Weapons Industry, 1890s

11. Antitheses I
• Andrew Undershaft
– Global Weapons
Manufacturer, aims to
eliminate poverty altogether
via pursuit of wealth
vs.
• Major Barbara
– Salvation Army commitment
to social cause of poor relief,
education, reform

12. Antitheses II
settings