George Bernard Shaw
1) Pygmalion
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A professor of phonetics takes on the challenge of turning a London flower girl into a lady.
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First performed in 1905 and published in 1907, "Major Barbara" is a dramatic play by the famed Irish playwright and activist George Bernard Shaw. The story centers around its title character who, as an officer in the Salvation Army, becomes disenchanted by the increasing social problems that she sees and the willingness of her organization to accept money from armament manufacturers. Barbara is disillusioned about the good work the Salvation Army...
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One of George Bernard Shaw's most performed and studied plays, "Arms and the Man" is a classic example of Shaw's comedic wit. First produced in 1894, the play is set during the Serbo-Bulgarian war and tells the story of Raina Petkoff, a young Bulgarian woman, who is engaged to Sergius, a soldier away at war whom she idolizes. While both her father and fiancé are away fighting, Raina, at home with her mother, has a very innocent and romantic idea...
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As suggested by the reference to Nietzsche's "Übermensch" in the title of the play, George Bernard Shaw intended Man and Superman to be not only a light romantic comedy but also a deeply philosophical work. In this highly entertaining play, he lays out his perspective on life and the cosmos with unsurpassable wit and verve.
Upon the death of her father, Ann Whitefield is left in the care of two guardians, Roebuck Ramsden and John Tanner. Tanner,...
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Ellie Dunn, her father, and her fiancé are invited to one of Hesione Hushabye's infamous dinner parties, to be held at the house of her father, the eccentric Captain Shotover, an inventor in his late 80s who is trying to create a psychic ray that will destroy dynamite. The house is built in the shape of the stern of a ship. Lady Utterword, Shotover's other daughter, arrives from Australia, but he pretends not to recognise her. Hesione says they are...
6) Saint Joan
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The great Irish playwright's impassioned dramatization of the life and trial of Joan of Arc.
Three years after Joan of Arc was canonized in 1920, George Bernard Shaw brought to the stage a more complex and human portrayal of the fifteenth-century French martyr, creating one of the theater's most memorable and enduring female roles. Already renowned for plays such as Pygmalion, The Arms and the Man, and Major Barbara, Shaw presented Saint Joan as...
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The play is set in a seaside town and tells the story of Mrs. Clandon and her three children, Dolly, Phillip and Gloria, who have just returned to England after an eighteen-year stay in Madeira. The children have no idea who their father is and, through a comedy of errors, end up inviting him to a family lunch. At the same time a dentist named Valentine has fallen in love with the eldest daughter, Gloria. However, Gloria considers herself a modern...
8) Candida
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"Candida" is the story of its title character, a woman who is married to the Reverend Morell. Candida is a woman of many talents and her husband has his wife to thank for much of his success. When a young man by the name of Marchbanks professes his love for Candida, Morell must reexamine his relationship with his wife and ultimately discovers a side to her that he never knew existed. "Candida" is a play written during a time of great empowerment of...
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Mrs. Warren's Profession is a play written by George Bernard Shaw in 1894, and first performed in London in 1902. The title refers to prostitution. The story centres on the relationship between Mrs Kitty Warren and her daughter, Vivie. Mrs. Warren, a former prostitute and current brothel owner, is described as "on the whole, a genial and fairly presentable old blackguard of a woman." Vivie, an intelligent and pragmatic young woman who just graduated...
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The Devil's Disciple is an 1897 play written by Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw. The play is Shaw's eighth, and after Richard Mansfield's original 1897 American production it was his first financial success, which helped to affirm his career as a playwright. It was published in Shaw's 1901 collection Three Plays for Puritans together with Captain Brassbound's Conversion and Caesar and Cleopatra. Set in Colonial America during the Revolutionary...
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First staged in 1906, "The Doctor's Dilemma" is a play that revolves around a community of doctors, most specializing, unbeknownst to them, in different types of expensive, fraudulent treatments. Dr. Ridgeon, who has actually discovered a vaccine for tuberculosis, is conflicted about administering his limited remedy, for the husband of a woman he is in love with can pay, but his kind yet poverty-stricken colleague Dr. Blenkinsop cannot. Shaw's drama...
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When Julius Caesar arrives in Egypt and finds Cleopatra in hiding, he encourages her to return to the palace and embrace her role as queen. Shaw depicts an unlikely pair that bond over a common goal.
As Roman forces invade Egypt, Julius Caesar stumbles across a young Cleopatra hiding amongst the statues. He initially conceals his identity, as the queen expresses concern over Caesar and his impending army. When he convinces her to return to the...
13) The Philanderer
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The Philanderer is a play by George Bernard Shaw. It was written in 1893 but the strict British censorship laws at the time meant that it was not produced on stage until 1902. It is one of the three plays Shaw published as Plays Unpleasant in 1898, alongside Widowers' Houses and Mrs Warren's Profession. The volume was written to raise awareness of social problems and criticise capitalist behaviour. The influence of Naturalist playwrights is evident...
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Androcles and the Lion is a 1912 play written by George Bernard Shaw. The play is Shaw's retelling of the tale of Androcles, a slave who is saved by the requiting mercy of a lion. In the play, Shaw portrays Androcles to be one of the many Christians being led to the Colosseum for torture. Characters in the play exemplify several themes and takes on both modern and supposed early Christianity, including the cultural clash between Jesus' teachings and...
15) Misalliance
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Misalliance is a play written in 1909–1910 by George Bernard Shaw. The play takes place entirely on a single Saturday afternoon in the conservatory of a large country house in Hindhead, Surrey in Edwardian era England. It is a continuation of some of the ideas on marriage that he expressed in 1908 in his play, Getting Married. It was also a continuation of some of his other ideas on Socialism, physical fitness, the Life Force, and "The New Woman":...
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Pygmalion and Three Other Plays, by George Bernard Shaw, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:
• New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars
• Biographies of the authors
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It is midsummer night on the terrace of the Palace at Whitehall, overlooking the Thames. The Palace clock chimes four quarters and strikes eleven. The Man arrives at Whitehall where he meets a Beefeater guard. He persuades the Beefeater to allow him to stay to meet his girlfriend, a lady of the court, who will be arriving soon for a secret tryst. The Man notes down various interesting phrases used by the Beefeater. The Lady arrives, cloaked, but it...
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John Bull's Other Island is a comedy about Ireland, written by George Bernard Shaw in 1904. Shaw himself was born in Dublin, yet this is one of only two plays of his where he thematically returned to his homeland, the other being O'Flaherty V. C. The play was highly successful in its day, but is rarely revived, probably because so much of the dialogue is specific to the politics of the day. (Excerpt from Wikipedia)
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"The Man of Destiny" is one of Shaw's shorter works, just a one-act play, in which we see the mastery of character development that is so common to the playwright's works. The play is an investigation of a young twenty-seven year old general by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte who has yet to achieve the accomplishments for which make him such an important figure in world history. In the play, we find him waiting impatiently at an inn on the road between...
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Captain Charles Edstaston is assigned to the Imperial Russian court in Saint Petersburg, during the 34-year rule of Empress Catherine the Great, and brings his fiancée, Claire, with him. In the midst of court intrigue and palace politics, primarily instigated by Catherine's favored statesman and military leader, the drunken, ill-mannered, but crafty Prince Patiomkin.