Three by Shaw: Major Barbara, How He Lied to her Husband, and John Bull’s Other Island

      George Bernard Shaw. Major Barbara (1906) Shaw’s Preface is as outrageously wrongheaded as usual: he loved the sound of his own ideas. His comments on the way the world works are acutely and cynically accurate, but his inferences about how we should deal with it simply miss the mark. He is very good at presenting us with real and lifelike characters, but when he thinks about real people he goes awry. It’s as if his intellect and his imagination don’t know of each other’s existence.
     The play works well, what with Barbara eventually recognising the value of her father’s munitions-derived money. It would be a pleasure to see on stage. I’ve seen it as a movie, not memorable enough for me to recall much besides the “modern” architecture of Undershaft’s factory. The plotting is perhaps a trifle too pat, but that’s GBS for you: he will make his plays demonstrate his ideas, and that’s when the machinery creaks. When he just goes with his imagination, as in the Salvation Army scenes, the results are brilliant, witty, emotionally true, and beautifully paced. You can find more about the play here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Barbara *** (2008)

      George Bernard Shaw. How He Lied to her Husband (1907) A youthful poet has a (chaste) affair with a well-married and rather silly older woman. He wants her to leave her husband and run away with him. When the husband shows up, he tries to pass off the incriminating letters and poems as being written to someone else, which annoys the husband, who takes the lie as an insult to himself as well as his wife. He wants her to be attractive to other men, to be the subject of passionate love poems, which bolster his pride in having snagged her for himself. So the young lover tells him what he wants to hear, hence playlet’s title. Shaw shows once again that he understands the conventions of romance and courtly love, and the realities of respectable suburban life. I think this play is more successful than many of his more serious efforts. *** (2008)

      George Bernard Shaw. John Bull’s Other Island (1907) I started to read the preface and gave up. GBS was not the best analyst of politics. His notions of how the Irish Question came about, and how it should be resolved, were shown to be wrong-headed by subsequent events. About the only thing he got right was that it would be a protracted and bloody affair if it wasn’t settled quickly.
     The one thing GBS never seems to have fully understood was the lure of power for its own sake. (This leads him to make Undershaft a seeker after profit, which is the only serious flaw in Major Barbara. Profit, i.e. money, is a means and instrument of power, not and end in itself.) Like many idealistic ideologues, he believed that sweet reason would prevail, if it was made clear enough what the benefits would be. He would not recognise the irony of the Canadian toast, “Peace, order, and good government.”
     That sheer bloody-mindedness and paranoid delusions are more potent motives than the desire for peace, prosperity, and lawful order was something he could never see. That’s one reason he (like many other Socialists of the time) kept excusing the excesses of Soviet Russia, for example. He was of course right that the Protestants would have nothing to fear in a Catholic united Ireland, but he couldn’t see, because he couldn’t understand, that religious paranoia would prevent a settlement. He also couldn’t see that the IRA was dominated by psychopaths, who carried on their bloody vendettas not because they expected politically acceptable results but because they liked the murder and mayhem (as well as the loot).
     So I didn’t read the play. I don’t think I missed anything. ** (2008)

The Original Hitch Hiker Radio Scripts (1985)

     Douglas Adams The Original Hitch Hiker Radio Scripts (1985) The whole lot, including bits snipped to shorten the scripts to the mandatory 29 minutes 30 seconds. I bought this book in 1986, and it promptly disappeared into Jon’s library in the spare bedroom. Marie found it recently when she was dusting the book shelves, so I finally got to read it. It was worth the wait.
     As we all know, Arthur Dent and his friend Ford Prefect (actually an alien from a small planet near Betelgeuse) manage to hitch a ride minutes before a Vogon space constructor fleet demolishes Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass. The subsequent episodes detail their rescue by a ship powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive, meeting Ford’s semi-cousin Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian (an astrophysicist and the only other Earth survivor), Marvin the depressed robot, and so on. The central trope is the search for the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. Throughout, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy informs Arthur (and us) of various background stories needed to make what sense we may of the impossible events that the five adventurers survive (but only just).
     The first six episodes were made into the TV series that introduced me and (probably) millions of other people to the Guide. Adams used the latter six when he wrote the Hitch Hiker’s trilogy of four books. The different media versions differ in detail, and occasionally in story-line, but throughout we have the picaresque quest, and Adams’ amazing ability to make deep philosophical and scientific conundrums intelligible via jokes. And it all makes the kind of absurd logical sense that only the English, it seems, are able to convey.
The book includes notes on each episode by the producer Geoffrey Perkins with interpolations by Adams. ****

The Man Born To Be King (Sayers)

Dorothy Sayers The Man Born to be King (1943; reprinted 1990) Twelve radio plays (first broadcast in 1943 by the BBC) telling the story of Jesus from shortly after his birth to after the Resurrection. It is told from a believer’s stance: Sayers is trying to make those events historically and narratively real, and she succeeds superbly.
     For example, she brings in a secondary plot of an aborted Zealot uprising, which provides both historical and human motivation for a variety of otherwise puzzling actions, chief of which is Judas betrayal of Jesus. Judas wanted Jesus to be the Messiah as Judas conceived him, which of course he was, up to a point. However, because he has insufficient information and does not trust Jesus, Judas misinterprets Jesus’ actions, thinks Jesus has sold out. The betrayal follows inevitably.
     Another example is Pilate’s puzzling decision to reopen the case against Jesus after throwing out the Sanhedrin’s petition. Claudia, Pilate’s wife, has had bad dreams about Jesus, whom she has encountered earlier. Pilate’s one great virtue is his love for his wife, so when she warns him, he listens. And the story follows its natural course.
     In other words, Sayers shows that the events of Jesus Passion all had hinged on human beings pursuing their various political, spiritual, personal, and careerist ends. God did not twist events to follow a pre-arranged pattern. Even Judas’s betrayal did not have to happen. If Judas had been less egotistical, and more trusting (if he had had fides, faith), he would have drawn back from his bargain with the High Priest, but Caiaphas’s men would have arrested Jesus anyhow. And so it goes. The events of the story are inevitable, but at each step some other decision could have been made, and the cost to some individuals would have been less.
     The scripts are written for the ear, which makes them easier to follow. Sayers's notes to each script (directed to the producers and actors) are worth reading just for the theological and psychological insight they offer. Sayers is an uncompromising Christian, in the sense that she takes Jesus’s godhead and all that flows from it for granted. However, she is no pietistic literalist, and knows that God works with the material at hand. This includes Sayers’s own plays: they work as plays, first and foremost. Though we know the story before we read them, they convince as dramatic story-telling. You don’t have to be Christian to understand and enjoy them. For the Christian, however, these plays may help clarify several mysteries: God-in-Man, the function of free will in God’s plans, the variety of religious experience, and so on.
     A wonderful book. **** (2001)

Dangerous Corner (Play)

     J. B. Priestly Dangerous Corner (1932) One of Priestley’s favourite subjects: The effect of hidden or secret knowledge on relationships. Six people, related by blood, marriage, and business, stumble into an evening of revelations surrounding the death of Martin, Robert’s brother. The revelations of unacknowledged actions and feelings disturb them all. Martin was loved and hated, the married couples don’t love each other, Olwen is in love with Robert, whose wife Freda loved Martin. Gordon (Freda’s brother) had an unhealthy attachment to Martin (which Martin used but didn’t return), and his wife Betty is mistress of Stanton, who is a cad, thief, and liar. The brother of the dead man has no faith or hope, and has subsisted on illusions (one of which was Betty’s purity and innocence,) which have now been shattered. Martin was a moral monster, playing these people off against one another, and using them all a objects of amusement and gratification.
     The question of course is how these people will continue, knowing what they now know. Priestley ducks it by replaying the first few lines of the play, and turning the story down safer lines. A trick ending, which I suppose was necessary, since to answer the question would require not just one other play but several. In other words, the play is the opening section of a novel. Anyhow, it reads more like a novel than a play. The stage directions are very specific in terms of movement about the stage, but they don’t help. I’ve seen a video version of another of his plays, When We Are Married, which was well enough done that I saw it twice. Priestley has a knack for characterisation and analysis of relationships, which makes for interesting stories, but the interest does not go very deep. He also tends to show the women as stronger and more pragmatic than the men. This seems to me a very English trait, but I couldn’t say why I think so. ** (2000)
     Update 2013: Re: strong female characters: Shakespeare started it. His heroines are generally stronger than the men, many of which are doofuses.

Outward Bound (Play))

     Sutton Cane Outward Bound (1923) The conceit of the play is simple: The passengers on a ship are dead. The ship is bound for Hades (both Heaven and Hell.) Vane plays nicely with this notion, especially in countering the then still current notions of the after-life. But the characters and their life stories (revealed when a jolly clergyman turns out to be the Examiner) are clichés. Their fates are thinly disguised versions of purgatory, limbo, and (eventually) heaven. It’s a one joke story. I found it interesting enough to read, but I also felt impatient with the slow pace of the story.
     This is a very actable play. One could really exaggerate the characters without damaging the effect. But the script promises more than it delivers. Apart from the cosiness of the afterlife (no fire and brimstone, no heavenly hosts), it’s thoroughly conventional in its views. It’s the kind of play that some people would call daring or different, others would call mildly amusing, and others would consider clichéd and boring. **

Mr Pim Passes By (Play)

     A. A. Milne, A. A. Mr. Pim Passes By (1922) A puzzle play depending on mistaken assumptions, family secrets, errors of fact, and so on. Mr. Pim visits a family in the country, and in his conversation suggests that the wife’s first husband is still alive. This of course causes an Ibsenesque revelation of the cracks and strains in the marriage, and the hypocrisy within the family. All ends well and conventionally, except perhaps for a more honest understanding between husband and wife. Pim acts as a catalyst. His character is just woolly and ineffectual enough to make his misunderstandings and their effects on the family believable. Overall, the characters are stereotypes, but good character actors could make something quite pleasant of this script. ** (2000)

The Green Goddess (Play

     William Archer The Green Goddess (1921) Some travellers are stranded in a remote and apparently uncivilised region of the world. The Rajah turns out to be English educated, etc etc. The themes concern British-Indian relations, European imperialism (both political and cultural), the stability of marriages, etc. An oddly earnest play, despite the bits of comedy in it. Forgettable - I had to skim it to remind myself of what I’d read! * (2000)

What Every Woman Knows (Play)

      J. M. Barrie What Every Woman Knows (1908) In style and tone, a cross between Pinero and Wilde. Some very good satire on the solemn (as opposed to the serious) man. A pseudo-Shavian play, not as acerbic or subtle as Shaw’s works, yet treating the same themes. Maggie the wife is of course the driving force in her husband John Shand’s political career, a fact he never fully acknowledges, although he eventually recognises her value to him, and even, in his awkward, self-centred way, comes to love her. Shaw did it much better, but Barrie did it more palatably: he didn’t insult his audience the way Shaw did. A nicely done play, which could be done successfully now, if the director can find the right balance between affectionate respect and camp. **½

The Importamce of Being Earnest (Play)

     Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) Why does this play work so well in contrast to Pinero’s melodrama? Its story is melodramatic (the discovery of lost orphans, the reconciliation of lovers, the winning of the approval of disapproving relatives, are all melodramatic motifs), but  unlike Pinero, Wilde knew and understood the artificiality of the genre, and played with it. Paradoxically, this playfulness makes more profound and subtle, that is truthful, points about morality, social standards, hypocrisy, and true goodness than Pinero’s laboured drama, which deals with exactly the same themes. Part of the difference is of course the language. Wilde’s style is realistic, or seems so, despite the many epigrams, or perhaps because the epigrams are just the ones a truly witty person (such as Oscar) would use in polite company. Wilde also understands the difference between superficial and deep feelings, Pinero’s characters operate at one level only. And Wilde doesn’t write his play to teach a lesson, but to entertain, which in the end teaches more powerfully than any overtly didactic work ever can. **** (2000)
     Update 2013: I've seen two film, one video, and one stage version of this play. In every medium, it works wonderfully well. It's thought of as a comedy, that is, a funny play. It's certainly funny, but it's also a comedy in Frye's sense: the story of an outsider hero who must undergo some test which nearly destroys him before becoming a full member of his community. That's one reason it's lasted. Another is that it shows how people can and do transcend the rules of the society to which they ostensibly subscribe. And of course it's a romantic comedy, and a vast multitude of theatre-goers are suckers for romance. That includes me.

The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (Play)

     Arthur Wing Pinero The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (1894) One of the plays in Sixteen Famous British Plays (Modern Library 1942). These are all full-length scripts, so I will review them individually. I’ve been reading them since August.
     All these plays were in their time box-office hits. Reading them one is struck by the datedness of the style, characterisation, and structure. This play is no exception. It’s a social melodrama, a soap opera in other words, and a very dated one. Mrs. Tanqueray has a past which catches up with her: she has been the mistress of one of her husband’s old friends. Just as she has made friends with her husband’s daughter (a moral snob), the old friend shows up. She kills herself because she can’t bear the shame of it all. I suppose the play was considered daring in its time. It’s pseudo-Ibsen. It has its moments, but to me it seems overwrought and artificial. It appears to be intended as a tragedy, but at best it merely achieves pathos.
     Why can’t we believe in these stories nowadays? Perhaps because even in their own time they were unbelievable. Their content and form are social parables (which all melodramas are, according to Davies), and weren’t intended to be taken literally. Yet the style is naturalistic, and the tone is Ibsenist. The play doesn’t really know its own genre, in a way. That it would work as theatre is plain. but since it’s dated, it would be hard to do well now. Interesting as a period piece, its values seem not merely quaint but oppressive to us, so it might have interest precisely because it’s so dated. But most theatre goers would be offended, I think, by the smugness of the male characters. *1/2 (2000)