This document provides an analysis of George Bernard Shaw's play "A Ship A Shop". It summarizes that the play tells a story of a man and woman meeting on a ship with opposing views, as the man wants a wealthy woman and the woman wants adventure, but they both learn to value domestic life over lavish experiences. The analysis also notes that Shaw avoids commentary and leaves interpretation open, exploring themes of language, uncertainty, and how meaning is negotiated in a theatrical performance.

1. Shavian Metatheater from A to Z
by Jean Reynolds

2. A SHIP A SHOP

3. Judi Dench
starred in a 1979
production.

4. A SHIP A SHOP

6.  No preface
 No afterword
 No politics
 No economics
 No social commentary
 No hint of the war
that’s coming

7. “Yet a name as signifier of
social differences is always
an aporia that indicates
singularity, individuality,
and unique identity while
always being socially and
kinship based, always
someone else’s name—‘In
the name of the father,’ as
Lacan put it.” (Gahan 221)
Peter Gahan says that it’s a
play about language.

9.  Reverse love chase
 “Comedy of
disillusion”
 Theatrical skill

10. “Shaw’s Comedy of
Disillusionment”
“Comprehension of events in the
theater is always provisional
and—until the end of
performance—necessarily
incomplete. In its temporal
unfolding, dramatic plot is a
string of inferences, the
moment's best guess.”
Stanton B.
Garner Jr.

11.  Compression
 Authorial absence
 Instability

12. Compression Strategies include:
 stock characters and
plots
 stage settings
 allusions to myth,
folk stories, and
other traditional
materials

13.  ”Village Wooing”
 only two characters – a
man and a woman
 shipboard setting

14. Authorial absence

15. Because Shaw doesn’t
narrate the unfolding
story (as a novelist might),
we have to make up our
own minds about what’s
happening onstage.

16. Instability  confusion
 contradictions
 doubts

17.  After his unhappy
first marriage, A
has given up on
women
 A wants a woman
with money
 A furtively checks
out every woman
on the ship
 A’s first marriage
was unhappy
because his wife
was used to
spending money

18.  Z wants to see the
world
 Z wants romantic
moonlight walks
in faraway places
 Z decides she
prefers day-to-day
village life
 Z decides she wants
to stay in the village
and marry her boss

19.  spending your money
carefully and making it
last
 getting to know one
place intimately and
deeply
 having a lavish, once-
in-a-lifetime
experience
 visiting far-flung,
exotic places

20.  trust and respect
 security
 companionship
 a thrilling romance
 glamour
 freedom

21. Who determines what a play is
about…and what it means?