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-antithesissynthesis
– 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