Shavian Dark Comedy

8/13/2019 Shavian Dark Comedy

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The Hudson Review, Inc

Shavian Dark ComedyAuthor(s): Richard HornbySource: The Hudson Review, Vol. 61, No. 2 (Summer, 2008), pp. 344-350Published by: The Hudson Review, IncStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20464872 .Accessed: 28/04/2013 08:10

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RICHARD HORNBY

Shavian Dark Comedy

THECONVENTIONALIEWOFSHAWs that is plays remerely didactictracts promoting his ideas on socialism, anti-Darwinism, linguisticreform, heroism, feminism, and maybe vegetarianism, while his characters are merely his mouthpieces. Shaw is a "playwright of ideas," with thefamous Shavian wit only a sugarcoating for an instructional pill. Nowthat most of the ideas themselves have become stale, the pill is bitterindeed; socialism is in decline, anti-evolutionism is the monopoly of

Christian fundamentalist morons (and Shaw opposed only the Darwinistmechanism, not the idea of evolution itself), the reform of Englishspelling is a dead issue, and vegetarianism isabout as popular as itwas inShaw's time, which is to say, not very. Feminism remains topical (though

greatly changed), but hero worship, which Shaw dabbled with in hisfinal decades, now seems done with. Shaw admired both Mussolini andStalin-hardly an advertisement for Shaw as a thinker or for thelegendary Shavian heroes in his plays. Heroism itself seems outdatedtoday. In his lifetime, Shaw experienced Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin,

Churchill, FDR, and Mao, giant figures for good or ill. Who are theequivalent "heroes" today? George W. Bush? Gordon Brown? VladimirPutin? The bureaucrats who run China? People do not want heroesanymore, onstage or in real life.

But if Shaw is pass6, why are the plays themselves still so popular inthe theatre? The answer is that the conventional view-activelypromoted by Shaw himself in his prefaces and other non-dramaticwriting-is wrong. Although Shaw was a talented platform orator, hisplays are not mere oratory decked out with a few playwriting tricks.They do not promote socialism or any other doctrine; they raise questions rather than answer them, doing so not just through rhetoric butthrough the traditional dramaturgical elements of plot and character.

The long didactic speeches, for example, are never directly addressedto the audience, but always to other characters. As for the Shavianheroes, most were created long before Mussolini or Stalin came topower, and unlike those political leaders they are not usually active in

public affairs but are only spirited kibitzers. And as for socialism, thesubject rarely comes up in the plays, while the characters are mostly

middle class; when a working-class representative appears it isusually asa comic stereotype, like Doolittle in Pygmalion. (Eliza in the same play isan exception, but she is no revolutionary, aspiring only tomiddle-class

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respectability.) First and foremost, Shaw was a creative artist, a playwright no more-and no less-political than Euripides, Shakespeare, orIbsen.

No play challenges the traditional view of Shaw more than his MajorBarbara, written in 1905. No capitalists were more despised in those daysthan weapons manufacturers, "merchants of death"; Shaw makes one ofthem the hero, Andrew Undershaft. Socialists generally dismissedreligion nd charities as inadequate for dealing with the underlyingproblems of the poor; Shaw makes the title character (Undershaft'sdaughter) a major in the Salvation Army. Furthermore, Undershaft's

chief antagonist in the play is not some charismatic socialist agitator, butBarbara's fiance, a professor of Greek-by his own description "themost artificial and self-suppressed of human creatures." He not onlyfails to convert Undershaft to a pacifist viewpoint, he ends up becoming

Undershaft's artner nd heir.The plot of Major Barbara is deceptively simple: Undershaft and his

snooty ife Lady Britomart, ong separated, have three rown hildren.Two are drearily conventional, taking after their mother, but the third,Barbara, has joined the Salvation Army, spending her days working withthe poor in one of its bleak shelters in London's East End. Her fiance

Adolphus Cusins (based on Shaw's friend Gilbert Murray, the notedGreek scholar and translator) helps out.

With her children having reached their majority, and two of themengaged to be married, Lady Britomart summons her husband to herhome to discuss finances. He has so neglected his family that he doesnot even recognize his children, but he soon becomes fascinated withBarbara, and she with him. They set up a bargain to visit each other'sworkplaces, first the Salvation Army shelter and then Undershaft'smunitions factory.

The first visit starts out well enough. The shelter is busy, Barbara andher co-workers are genuinely caring and hard working, and people aregetting help. Nevertheless, it soon becomes clear even to Barbaraherself that the Army isof little importance. Paupers (hilarious cockneystereotypes yet again) mouth pieties they do not really believe simply toget fed, while the whole operation is dependent on donations fromplutocrats like Undershaft, who contributes five thousand pounds onthe spot. Barbara is appalled that the Army would accept such a gift,considering its ultimate source, but what is the alternative?

The next visit, to Undershaft's works, ismore promising but alsomore surprising. Barbara had always thought of it as "a sort of pit wherelost creatures with blackened faces stirred up smoky fires and were

driven and tormented by my father," but it is in fact a model businesslocated in a beautiful company town filled with well-paid, contentedworkers. The contrast with the Salvation Army shelter is poignant; theshelter was devoted to doing good but produced only hypocrisy,ugliness, and scarcity, while the munitions factory, devoted to destruction, produces honesty, beauty, and abundance-at least for itsworkers.



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The munitions are killing people all over the world, including Manchuria, from which Undershaft cheerfully receives a report of the hugeslaughter caused by one of his "aerial battleships," presumably in theRusso-Japanese War. Lady Brit, her children, and Cusins are so taken byUndershaft's operations that their view of him turns around; he nowseems wise and philanthropic. Barbara and Cusins do have misgivings,but Undershaft convinces the latter to come into the business, which hewill eventually inherit. Cusins, however, rejects Undershaft's "true faithof an armorer"-selling arms to all comers-insisting that he will makeethical choices.

The play comes to an end without depicting whether the professorwill be able to do so. The munitions works, which can be seen as a metaphor for the whole modern industrial system, has a momentum that nosingle person can control. Undershaft repeatedly insists that he is

merely a passive participant in something much larger than himself.The play was written on the eve of World War I,when an arms race hadalready begun. The Liberal government in Parliament had just succeeded in starting construction of a new class of huge, expensive Dreadnought battleships, which of course Germany viewed as provocative. Allkinds of new weaponry were being invented and manufactured, aprocess that continues to this day. Putting professors like Cusins incharge of production instead of entrepreneurs like Undershaftprobably would not have changed much.

Major Barbara is thus not an attack on capitalism so much as it is arumination on fundamental contradictions in modern life. Does

modern technology contain the seeds of its own destruction?Civilization has lasted more than a century since Shaw wrote the play,but at the cost of two ghastly world wars and thousands of smaller ones,all made more horrible than ever because of modern weaponry like

Undershaft's. His leadership is beneficent, and his beautiful companytown is the welfare state inminiature, but World War I is on the horizon,

where the slaughter will not be far off inManchuria but all too close tohome. The play thus challenges not only capitalism but Shaw's ownsocialism and all other points of view. When Major Barbara was revived inLondon in 1929 with Sybil Thorndike in the title role, the productionwas hailed as "triumphantly topical," as it is today and will be foreveror for as long as we can last.

Major Barbara had a superb production last spring in the large OlivierTheatre of the National Theatre in London, starring the matchlessSimon Russell Beale as Undershaft. Short, pudgy, and rather funnylooking, he nonetheless has been successfully playing leads for two

decades at the National, including Oswald in Ghosts and the title role inHamlet, because of his excellent voice, intense eyes, and penetratingintelligence. He is unknown in the United States because he does little

TV or film work; the only movie role I have ever seen him in was the tinyone of the second gravedigger in the Kenneth Branagh Hamlet. Nevertheless he is a great actor in the modern British tradition of playing the



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character rather than displaying is personality, isappearing into therolebut nonetheless making it niquely his.After eeing him in Ghosts,I decided that all Oswalds should be short, pudgy, and funny looking.

As Undershaft, Beale wore a gray Van Dyke beard and moustache,which,with his lively yes nd wicked grin, made him distinctly evilish,a "tempter" as Cusins calls him. Gliding about the stage, peering ateverything and everyone around him, he was particularly good in silent

moments, as in his first entrance where he and Lady Brit briefly staredintensely t each other, reating transient exual frisson hat uggested

what they once had together and how they managed to produce three

children. He spoke with an upper-class English accent with a trace ofcockney nderneath, uggesting ndershaft's humble origins. eale isan actor for whom every detail, every moment, is a carefully craftedbrush stroke.

He was supported by an excellent cast, most notably Clare Higgins asLady Britomart andJohn Heffernan as her son Stephen; the two had tostart he show with Shaw's long, potentially oring scene of exposition,but managed to make it compelling. Paul Ready was a suitably professorial Cusins, while Hayley Atwell had looks and charm as Barbara butlacked strength. Part of this is due to the writing; Barbara fades after she

quits the Army in the second act, so that the remainder becomes Undershaft's lay. Shaw's original title as Andrew ndershaft's rofession.)Nicholas Hytner directed, with sets by Tom Pye. The twomade some

odd choices. LadyBritomart's ibrary uggested beautifully urnished,elegant Edwardian home, and the Salvation Army shelter was appropriately big, bleak, and bare, but Undershaft's works looked like a scenefrom Fritz Lang's Metropolis, although the stage directions and dialoglyricize on its beautiful setting. Hytner made deep cuts in the text,

which is inevitable with Shaw at his windiest (the show still ran twohours and forty minutes), but managed to lop off some of the best lines.

When silly-ass Charles Lomax, Lady Brit's other future son-in-law,remarks that "the more destructive war becomes, the sooner it will beabolished, eh?" Hytner cut Undershaft's ominous reply, "Not at all. The

more destructive war becomes the more fascinating we find it." After103 years, that foreboding statement unfortunately sounds truer thanever.

David Edgar is a playwright in the Shavian tradition, writing aboutsocial problems inways that raise questions rather than preach answers.

His new play, Testing the cho, touring all over Great Britain last winterand spring, deals with the issue of immigration, which is as controversial

in the U.K. as it is in the U.S.A.Emma is a dedicated teacher of what used to be called ESL (Englishas a Second Language) but is now termed ESOL (English for Speakersof Other Languages), recognizing the fact that foreigners studyingEnglish may already know more than one. This petty distinction is butone of many constant issues of political correctness she faces. The



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inciting event for the play is the new test for citizenship the Britishgovernment has devised, more pluralistic and simpler than the previousversion but also readier to criticize England. We get quotes, read out bythe actors, of the first and second editions of the actual governmentissued Life in the UK handbook: Where the older version said thoughtfully, "To understand a country well and the character of its inhabitants,some history is needed. We are influenced more than we imagine byimages of the past, true or false, historical or legendary," the new one

minimizes timidly, "To understand a country it is important to knowsomething about its history." Where the older version announced flatly,

"In 1707 came the Act of Union with Scotland," the new one admitsapologetically, "The English put pressure on the Scots to join Englandin an Act of Union." Of course, such erratic, politically induced changesdo notmake things easier for foreigners studying to become citizens.

Emma's students come from a wide range of countries, not all ofwhich are former British colonies-the Congo, Somalia, Serbia, India,Kosovo, Egypt. It is a reminder of how cosmopolitan our world hasbecome. There are many short scenes involving her pupils, in class andon their own; they include Tetyana, an Orthodox Christian woman fromPakistan in a marriage of convenience to a Ukrainian; Jasminka, a

Kosovan prostitute who wants to become a citizen so that she can get adecent job; and Nasim, an Egyptian woman and devout Muslim whofinds even the discussion of pork sausages (the class has been studying

British eating habits) an abomination.It ismade clear again and again that the reasons these people have

come to Britain and are now trying to become citizens have little to dowith love of its freedom and openness. They come for economic orfamily reasons, or to escape persecution, but are ill prepared for freechoice and human rights, Western concepts that are outside theirexperience. Emma is a classic European liberal, compassionate, open

minded, and helpful, but she runs up against a culture clash with astudent like Nasim. One of Emma's teaching methods involves a debatein which students must argue pro and con about whether a Muslimschoolgirl in Britain should be allowed to wear a jilbab (full-lengthgown) in her class. Nasim refuses to argue the negative position, findingthe debate format an insult to her religion. For her there is no complexissue with two sides, but a simple one of right and wrong. "If you wear a

miniskirt this is OK and brilliant," she notes acidly, but religious clothesare forbidden She files a complaint against Emma, which Emma's

mealy-mouthed supervisor Martin, a former student activist now tryingto please everyone, takes all too seriously. Emma resigns in disgust.

Like our hapless occupation of Iraq, Emma's experiences are areminder that freedom and democracy are not natural, ready to springout of the ground once artificial obstacles are removed, but instead are

Western cultural constructs. This does not mean they are thereforemeaningless; on the contrary, they are concepts to cherish and fight for.But we cannot expect other people automatically to embrace them, any



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more than our ancestors did asWestern democratic principles evolved.We must steer between the gutless moral relativism of Martin, and thesometimes naive moral certitude of Emma. Of course there are twosides to the jilbab issue, but it is unwise to expect a devout, newly arrived

Muslim to argue against being allowed towear it, even as an intellectualexercise. And how far is free speech supposed to go? Nasim tells Emmathat she supports the fatwah against Salman Rushdie, is favorablydisposed toward the suicide bombers in Israel, and marched in demonstrations gainst the anish cartoons epicting ohammed. Should shebe allowed to argue these positions in class? Emma finds it hard to

respond to these challenges, just as Nasim found it hard to respond topork sausages nd banned jilbabs.

I caught up with the traveling production of Testing the cho at theTricycle Theatre in north London, one of the better off-West-Endvenues. Despite its long list of characters, the play is written for onlyeight actors, who must perform up to four roles apiece. The cast at theTricycle was mostly satisfactory-at least I always knew who wassupposed to be who-but spoke the numerous foreign accents soheavily that I often found them hard to understand. (This was notbecause I am an American; they were not English accents.) Adding to

the problem, one of the characters is Tetyana's child, played here by anadult actress who used both a strained child's voice and a Pakistaniaccent Adding to that, director Matthew Dunster at times had theoverwrought haracters speaking simultaneously. ll this iscarryingrealism too far. Speech effects, like any other character device, shouldnever be forced; in the very whirlwind of your accents you must acquireand beget a temperance.

Stephen Adly Guirgis is an American playwright known for gritty,urban naturalistic plays with Christian overtones, as the very titlestestify-Jesus Hopped theA Train, Our Lady of 121st Street.His recent The

Last Days of Judas Iscariot turns the pattern around with an overtlyBiblical play whose characters are off the streets of New York. SigmundFreud and Mother Teresa also put in appearances. The inspiration forthe play dates from when the playwright was in the third grade,horrified to hear the story of Judas. How could a loving God consignhim to hell? Guirgis was not the first person to ponder that questionthe second-century Gnostic Gospel ofJudas, for example, depicts him asthe special friend of Jesus, not betraying him but helping him to fulfillhis destiny. Judas' guilt or innocence is an old conundrum.

The play is set in a courtroom "in downtown Purgatory," where Judas

ison trial. He isactually in a catatonic daze over what has happened, buthis supporters hope to save him from damnation. Various individualstestify for and against him: devout Henrietta Iscariot, Judas' mother(for, of course); hipster Satan (against); street-smart Pontius Pilate(against); pompous Sigmund Freud (for). The dialog can be both

hilarious and lyrical. Asked his opinion ofJudea, Pilate replies, "Armpit



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of the Empire, ifyou ask me. No atmosphere, nuthin'. Hot. Dirty. Dusty.Flies everywhere. Complete lack of culture and amusements. I'd arather spent ten years up inside the crack a my ass. But Augustusordered me to keep the peace there, so I obeyed my Emperor, and didmy duty.... The Pax Romana, baby, the prime directive-dass right."Mother Teresa, despite being Albanian, speaks with a Hispanic accent;St. Matthew says he was "scumbag" before Jesus changed him; theprosecutor calls Freud "Dr. Fried" after revealing the psychoanalyst'scocaine habit. ("Forgive me," the prosecutor goes on, "Imade a 'you'slip, didn't I?")

In short, The Last Days ofJudas Iscariot sprawls all over the place, likesomany American plays these days. Also, Judas himself, when he comesto, turns out to be a strident, humorless bore, while Jesus, despite T-shirtand jeans, is little more than the usual clich6. Nevertheless, the playcomes together movingly at the end, when the foreman of the jury, afterapologizing for convicting Judas, tells him a simple story of modernbetrayal; the foreman committed adultery in a meaningless affair thatended up costing him his marriage and children. "You cashed in silver,

Mister Iscariot, but me? Me, I threw away gold." For all its flippancy,Iscariot is the most genuinely religious American play since Tony

Kushner's Angels in America, harkening back to the medieval miracleplays (written by churchmen) that peopled Bible stories with contemporary folk. According to Christian theology, the Passion of Jesus wasnot a one-time event: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the leastof these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Guirgis' play, written

with theological advice from Jesuit priest James Martin, shows theGospels being reenacted on the streets of New York, and in the hearts ofeveryone.

I missed the New York production of Iscariot at the LAByrinthTheater (where all of Guirgis' plays have premiered), but as a regularvisitor to London, I need not have worried. Theatre leaders over therekeep a close eye on the American theatre and usually pick up on something good, even off-Broadway. The Almeida Theatre came through

with a strong production last spring; although only one member of thecast was an American, all were perfect in their accents and edgy, New

York attitudes. Rupert Goold, Artistic Director of Headlong Theatre(which co-produced), staged the piece with skill and panache.

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Shavian Dark Comedy