George+Bernard+Shaw

=George Bernard Shaw= George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950) was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays. Nearly all his writings deal sternly with prevailing social problems, but have a vein of comedy to make their stark themes more palatable. Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and class privilege.

He was most angered by what he perceived as the exploitation of the working class, and most of his writings censure that abuse. An ardent socialist, Shaw wrote many brochures and speeches for the Fabian Society, a British socialist movement which advocated gradual reform - including minimum wage and universal health care - and formed one of the key foundations for the Labour Party. He became an accomplished orator in the furtherance of its causes, which included gaining equal rights for men and women, alleviating abuses of the working class, rescinding private ownership of productive land, and promoting healthy lifestyles.

He is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938), for his contributions to literature and for his work on the film //Pygmalion// (adaption of his play of the same name), respectively. Shaw wanted to refuse his Nobel Prize outright because he had no desire for public honors, but accepted it at his wife's behest: she considered it a tribute to Ireland. He did reject the monetary award, requesting it be used to finance translation of Swedish books to English.

History and Development
Shaw began working on his first play destined for production, //Widowers' Houses//, in 1885 in collaboration with critic William Archer, who supplied the structure. Archer decided that Shaw could not write a play, so the project was abandoned. Years later, Shaw tried again and, in 1892, completed the play without collaboration. //Widowers' Houses//, a scathing attack on slumlords, was first performed at London's Royalty Theatre on 9 December 1892. Shaw would later call it one of his worst works, but he had found his medium. His first significant financial success as a playwright came from Richard Mansfield's American production of //The Devil's Disciple// (1897). He went on to write 63 plays, most of them full-length.

As Shaw's experience and popularity increased, his plays and prefaces became more voluble about reforms he advocated, without diminishing their success as entertainments. Such works, including //Caesar and Cleopatra// (1898), //Man and Superman// (1903), //Major Barbara// (1905) and //The Doctor's Dilemma// (1906), display Shaw's matured views, for he was approaching 50 when he wrote them. From 1904 to 1907, several of his plays had their London premieres in notable productions at the Court Theatre. The first of his new plays to be performed at the Court Theatre, //John Bull's Other Island// (1904), while not especially popular today, made his reputation in London when King Edward VII laughed so hard during a command performance that he broke his chair.

By the 1910s, Shaw was a well-established playwright. New works such as //Fanny's First Play// (1911) and //Pygmalion// (1912) - on which the famous, award-winning musical //My Fair Lady// (1956) is based - had long runs in front of large London audiences. Shaw's outlook was changed by World War I, which he uncompromisingly opposed despite incurring outrage from the public as well as from many friends. His first full-length piece, presented after the War but written mostly during it, was //Heartbreak House// (1919). A new Shaw had emerged - the wit remained, but his faith in humanity had dwindled.

In 1921, Shaw completed //Back to Methuselah//, his "Metabiological Pentateuch". The massive, five-play work starts in the Garden of Eden and ends thousands of years in the future; it showcases Shaw's postulate that a "Life Force" directs evolution toward ultimate perfection by trial and error. Shaw proclaimed the play a masterpiece, but many critics disagreed. The theme of a benign force directing evolution reappears in //Geneva// (1938), wherein Shaw maintains humans must develop longer lifespans in order to acquire the wisdom needed for self-government.

Methuselah was followed by //Saint Joan// (1923), which is generally considered to be one of his better works. Shaw had long considered writing about Joan of Arc, and her canonization in 1920 supplied a strong incentive. The play was an international success, and is believed to have led to his Nobel Prize in Literature. The citation praised his work as //"...marked by both idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic beauty."//

He wrote plays for the rest of his life, but very few of them are as notable — or as often revived — as his earlier work. //The Apple Cart// (1929) was probably his most popular work of this era. Later full-length plays like //Too True to Be Good// (1931), //On the Rocks// (1933), //The Millionairess// (1935), and //Geneva// (1938) have been seen as marking a decline. His last significant play, //In Good King Charles Golden Days// has, according to St. John Ervine, passages that are equal to Shaw's major works.

Characteristics
Shaw's plays were fraught with incisive humor, which was exceptional among playwrights of the Victorian era. However, Shaw's wittiness should not obscure his important role in revolutionizing British drama. In the Victorian Era, the London stage had been regarded as a place for frothy, sentimental entertainment. Shaw made it a forum for considering moral, political and economic issues, possibly his most lasting and important contribution to dramatic art.

Often his plays succeeded in the United States and Germany before they did in London. Although major London productions of many of his earlier pieces were delayed for years, they are still being performed there. Examples include //Mrs. Warren's Profession// (1893), //Arms and the Man// (1894), //Candida// (1894) and //You Never Can Tell// (1897).

Also, Shaw's published plays come with lengthy prefaces. These tend to be more about Shaw's opinions on the issues addressed by the plays than about the plays themselves. Often his prefaces are longer than the plays they introduce. For example, the Penguin Books edition of his one-act //The Shewing-up Of Blanco Posnet// (1909) has a 67-page preface for the 29-page playscript.

Published Plays

 * * //Plays Unpleasant// (published 1898)
 * //Widowers' Houses// (1892)
 * //The Philanderer// (1898)
 * //Mrs Warren's Profession// (1893)
 * //Plays Pleasant// (published 1898):
 * //Arms and the Man// (1894)
 * //Candida// (1894)
 * //The Man of Destiny// (1895)
 * //You Never Can Tell// (1897)
 * //Three Plays for Puritans// (published 1901)
 * //The Devil's Disciple// (1897)
 * //Caesar and Cleopatra// (1898)
 * //Captain Brassbound's Conversion// (1899)
 * //The Admirable Bashville// (1901)
 * //Man and Superman// (1902–03)
 * //John Bull's Other Island// (1904)
 * //How He Lied to Her Husband// (1904) || * //Major Barbara// (1905)
 * //The Doctor's Dilemma// (1906)
 * //Getting Married// (1908)
 * //The Glimpse of Reality// (1909)
 * //The Fascinating Foundling// (1909)
 * //Press Cuttings// (1909)
 * //Misalliance// (1910)
 * //Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress// (1917)
 * //The Dark Lady of the Sonnets// (1910)
 * //Fanny's First Play// (1911)
 * //Overruled// (1912)
 * //Androcles and the Lion// (1912)
 * //Pygmalion// (1912–13)
 * //The Great Catherine// (1913)
 * //The Inca of Perusalem// (1915)
 * //O'Flaherty VC// (1915)
 * //Augustus Does His Bit// (1916)
 * //Heartbreak House// (1919) || * //Back to Methuselah// (1921)
 * //In the Beginning//
 * //The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas//
 * //The Thing Happens//
 * //Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman//
 * //As Far as Thought Can Reach//
 * //Saint Joan// (1923)
 * //The Apple Cart// (1929)
 * //Too True To Be Good// (1931)
 * //On the Rocks// (1933)
 * //The Six of Calais// (1934)
 * //The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles// (1934)
 * //The Shewing Up of Blanco Posnet// (1909)
 * //The Millionairess// (1936)
 * //Geneva// (1938)
 * //In Good King Charles's Golden Days// (1939)
 * //Buoyant Billions// (1947)
 * //Shakes versus Shav// (1949) ||

Citing and References
All text and pictures from the [|Wikipedia article on George Bernard Shaw], with adaptations by the page author.