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The Critical Reception Of The Major Plays Of G. Bernard Shaw Performed Innew York: 1894-1950

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The Critical Reception Of The Major Plays Of G. Bernard Shaw Performed Innew York: 1894-1950

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Content This dissertation has been 69-9027
microfilmed exactly as received
KEOUGH, Lawrence Christopher, 1926-
THE CRITICAL RECEPTION OF THE MAJOR
PLAYS OF G. BERNARD SHAW PERFORMED
IN NEW YORK: 1894-1950.
U niversity of Southern California, Ph.D ., 1969
Language and Literature, m odem
University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan
/ _ Lawrence Christopher Keough 1969
© _____________________
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
THE CRITICAL RECEPTION OP THE MAJOR
PLAYS- OF G. BERNARD SHAW PERFORMED
IN NEW YORK: 1894-1950
by
Lawrence Christopher Keough
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(English)
August 1968
UNIVERSITY O F SOU THERN CALIFORNIA
T H E GRADUATE SC H O O L
U N IV ER SITY PARK
LOS A N G E L E S, C A L IF O R N IA 9 0 0 0 7
This dissertation, written by
-Lawr.ence. . .Chr_L s.toplier.. .Keo ugh......
under the direction of his.... Dissertation Com
mittee, and approved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by The Gradu
ate School, in partial fulfillment of require
ments for the degree of
D O C T O R OF P H I L O S O P H Y
Date. August.*.... 1968.
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
Chairman
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION................................
The Aims and Utility of the Study
The Scope and Materials of the Study
The Plays
The Critics
The Media of Criticism
Chapter
I SHAW'S INTRODUCTION TO NEW YORK: THE
PRODUCTIONS OF RICHARD MANSFIELD:
1894-1900 ........................
1894 - Arms and the Man
1897 - The Devil's Disciple
1899 - The Devil's Disciple
1900 - Arms and the Man
II SHAW'S ESTABLISHMENT AND TRIUMPH: THE
PRODUCTIONS OF ARNOLD DALY ET AL. :
1903-1919 ........................
1903 - Candida
1905 - John Bull's Other Island
1905 - You Never Can Tell
1905 - Mrs. Warren's Profession
1905 - Man and Superman
1906 - Arms and the Man
1907 - Mrs. Warren's Profession
1912 - Man and Superman
1915 - You Never Can Tell
1915 - Candida
1916 - Misalliance
Chapter
III
IV
Page
SHAW'S RECEPTION IN THE 1920'S: THE
PRODUCTIONS OP THE THEATRE GUILD ET AL. :
1920-1929 .............................. 54
1920 - Heartbreak House
1922 - Back to Methuselah
1923
- The Devil's Disciple
1923
- Saint Joan
1924
-
Candida
1925
- Caesar and Cleopatra
1925
- Arms and the Man
1925
- Androcles and the Lion
1926 - Pygmalion
1927
- The Doctor's Dilemma
1928 - Major Barbara
SHAW'S RECEPTION IN THE 1930'S: THE
PRODUCTIONS OF THE THEATRE GUILD ET AL.:
1930-1939 .............................. 86
1930 - The Apple Cart
1931 - Getting Married
1932 - Too True To Be Good
1935 - The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles
1936 - Saint Joan
1937 - Candida
1938 - Pygmalion
1938 - On the Rocks
1938 - Androcles and the Lion
SHAW'S RECEPTION IN THE 1940'S: THE PRODUC
TIONS OF KATHARINE CORNELL, MAURICE EVANS,
ET AL. : 1940-1950 .................... 112
1940 - Geneva
1941 - The Doctor's Dilemma
1942 - Candida
1946 - Pygmalion
111
Chapter
1946 - Androcles and the Lion
1946 - Candida
1947 - Man and Superman
1948 - John Bull's Other Island
1948 - You Never Can Tell
1949 - Caesar and Cleopatra
1950 - The Devil1s Disciple
1950 - Arms and the Man
VI THE CRITICS AND THEIR ATTITUDES ON SHAW'S
PLAYS GENERALLY: 1920-1950.........
Minor Critics
Major Critics
Archibald Henderson
Stark Young
Edmund Wilson
Joseph Wood Krutch
George Jean Nathan
John Mason Brown
Eric Bentley
John Gassner
CONCLUSION .....................................
APPENDIX .......................................
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this study was to describe the critical
reception of the major plays of G. Bernard Shaw as they were
performed on the commercial stage of New York from 1894 to
1950. The procedure was to examine the criticism to deter
mine which plays were successful and which were not. Note
was taken of the patterns or directions which the criticism
took, in order to ascertain the nature of the appreciation
that American critics accorded the plays, and to gain some
insight into the reasons for the success or failure of the
dramas.
The method of examination was to "ollow the chronologi-
can order of the productions of Shaw's major plays in New
York City. This was a convenience of presentation, for the
phases of Shaw's reception were more easily explained by
dividing the reception into periods in which his plays were!
staged by the major producers. The first period, 1894-1900j
was that of the series of productions by Richard Mansfield;
then there was a three-year gap in which Shaw was without a
hearing, but in 1903 "Arnold Daly Startled Broadway" with a
sequence of Shaw productions which lasted intermittently
2
until 1924. 1 The third phase was the long line of produc- ;
tions by the Theatre Guild from 1920 to 1940, a period
which has been broken down into two separate decades in
order to facilitate the study of the progression of Shaw's
reputation. The Daly and the Theatre Guild eras overlapped
chronologically because Daly declined as an interpreter of
Shaw's plays about the time the Guild began to perform them.
The final period from 1940 to 1950 was that in which several
outstanding actors such as Katharine Cornell, Gertrude
Lawrence and Maurice Evans produced the Shaw plays. This
study stopped with the death of Shaw in 1950.
The critics considered were of two general classes:
first, the journalists who wrote newspaper reviews of plays
considered as public entertainment; second, the scholars
who wrote learned articles and books on plays considered as
drama and art as well as entertainment. Obviously these
kinds of critics are not mutually exclusive, and frequently,;
as in the cases of Joseph Wood Krutch and John Mason Brown,
shade into one another. But regardless of classification, j
this dissertation has given a comprehensive account of all
the critics.
i
1This is the title of a chapter in Archibald Hender
son's biography George Bernard Shaw: Man of the Century
(New York, 1956), p. 469* ;
3
The theatre columns of representative New York news
papers furnished the journalistic commentary. Some of the
writers were difficult to identify, for they often did not
sign their articles, while others were easily identified
such as William Winter, critic of The New York Tribune from
1865 to 1909* Winter's status was very high in his day,
and his dicta were heeded almost like the pronouncements of
Dr. Johnson. He had an influence that was greater than his
ability or his present reputation. Nevertheless, he stood
for a common view and his criticism was noted as part of
the record of Shaw's reputation. By the same principle the
opinions of all the critics were taken into account, but
the eminent ones such as Heywood Broun, Stark Young, George
Jean Nathar, Brooks Atkinson, John Mason Brown, Joseph Wood
Krutch and Eric Bentley were stressed.
There were other critics, not so well known or more
academic, whose comments form part of the history of Shaw's
reputation. Archibald Henderson, for example, was a keen
student of the drama of his time, and he had written on the
drama before he heard of Shaw. However, his discovery of
Shaw in 1903 was almost like a religious conversion, and he
became a veritable apostle, preaching and writing about the
new dramatist. No Shaw student can ignore his contribu
tions; therefore, Henderson's work, and the scholarship of
men like him, was examined in this dissertation.
4
Prom 1894 to 1950, New York City was the theatre
capital of America. If a play was to be a success, it had
to succeed in New York. Hence, the fate in America, and
the lessons learned from the success and failure of the
productions had implications for all productions of Shavian
drama.
The immediate reception of Shaw's plays was traced by
noting the comments of at least three representative news
papers. The response to Shaw's plays in the magazines and
learned journals was derived by analysis of the relevant
articles about Shaw's drama in The Nineteenth Century
Reader's Guide, The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature
the annual PMLA Bibliography, The New York Times Index,
The New York Critic's Theatre Review, and my own "bibliog-
p
raphy." See the Appendix for a convenient list of plot
summaries.
p
"George Bernard Shaw 1946-1955: A Selected Bibliog
raphy— Part II," Bulletin of Bibliography, XXIII (January-
April, I960), 20-24; Part III, XXIII (May-August, i9 6 0),
36-41.
CHAPTER I
SHAW'S INTRODUCTION TO NEW YORK: THE PRODUCTIONS OF
RICHARD MANSFIELD: 1894-1900
Preface: Context of the Criticism
The first Shaw play to be produced in the United States
was Arms and the Man.* It was produced on September 17*
1894 by Richard Mansfield at the Herald Square Theatre In
New York. This section will highlight the background which
surrounded the production of the play, for the criticism is
meaningless unless there is an understanding of its context.
The circumstances of production, therefore, have special
significance for this study.
According to Paul Wilstach, one of Richard Mansfield's
biographers, Arms and the Man came through the mail as a
2
routine, unsolicited manuscript. Mansfield knew little of
the author, and chose the manuscript after one reading;
"^John Chapman and Garrison P. Sherwood, Eds., Best
Plays of 1894-1897 (New York, 1955), p. 91-
p
Richard Mansfield: The Man and the Actor (New York,
1907), pp. 2 5 8-2 5 9.
•3
however, it was not as simple as that. Mansfield had
already seen the London production of Arms and the Man and
had already decided that the play had possibilities. When
Shaw learned Mansfield was interested, the playwright
visited him and soon thereafter Mansfield received a con
tract together with detailed instructions on how to produce
4 5
the play and what part to play. The imperious-' Mansfield
did not like Shaw's avuncular attitude, and ignoring Shaw's
advice, produced the play as a showpiece for his own talent.^
This irritated Shaw, who grew scornful of Mansfield and came
to think of him as an American Henry Irving. Shaw later
wrote Mrs. Mansfield that her husband was an egocentric
JSee the more authoritative Archibald Henderson, George
Bernard Shaw; Man of the Century, pp. 428-429-
4 « .
The letter dated June 19* 1894, is quoted in full In
Henderson, pp. 428-429.
^Paul Wilstach remarked that "absolutism marked his
bearing ... in the theatre." p. 2 6 1.
c
William Winter, the friend and biographer of Mansfield,
wrote that "Mansfield was at one time attracted by the eccen
tric style of that writer (concerning whom, he later
expressed to me a cordial disapprobation)," Life and Art of
Richard Mansfield with Selections from His Letters, II (New
York, 1910), p. 231.
7
7
scene-stealer and advised her to leave him. Mrs. Mansfield
loved Shaw's humor, but Richard grew more hostile. Although
Mansfield used The Devil's Disciple (1 8 9 7) as a vehicle for
a personal triumph, he gradually cut Shaw's plays from his
repertoire, ending as he had begun, with Arms and the Man
(1900).
Mansfield and The New York Times
The New York Times had an ambivalent attitude toward
Shaw because it was both impressed and disturbed by him.
The Times was aware of the Intellectuality of Shaw but it
disliked his lack of sentimentality. It recognized that
Shaw had something to say, but It was put out of patience
by the effort necessary to understand his ideas. The Times
did not wish to seem obtuse or unfashionable by ignoring
the plays; yet it resented recognizing a writer who made
satiric remarks about revered things. Suspicious of ideas
it did not understand, the Times too often tried to account
for the plays by fastening on the playwright's Idiosyncra-
cies. Mansfield and the plays were brilliant and entertain
ing, but the satire left a bitter taste. Therefore, the
Times' criticism was ambivalent, a curious combination of
praise and blame, accolade and inevitable qualification.
^Henderson, p. 450. Letter dated December 10, 1897*
8
The Times was confused by this new dramatist: It simply
did not know what to make of him.
Of the first Shaw play to be produced in the commercial
theatre of America the critic of the Times wrote:
By some it was liked, and by all others it was politely
followed. There was much applause, and . . . much appre
ciative laughter, and there was no sign of displeasure.
Yet Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw, the eccen
tric, and able London Socialist, essayist, musical critic,
Ibsenite, and wearer of gray flannel clothes, is just
o
the kind of play to displease some people very much.
The critic was puzzled by the play’s favorable reception,
for though he recognized Shaw’s appeal to the intelligence,
he rejected this because he preferred sentimentality.
It is all entertaining to anyone not averse to unrelieved
satire. There are no "sympathetic" personages at all;
there is nothing to touch the gentler emotions, and the
smiles are all directed at human weaknesses. Therefore
the comedy can never be popular, (p. 5)
In a later notice, September 23, 1894, the critic com
plained about the popular success of the play and condemned
it as cheap.
The satirical play of the distinguished Shaw has been re
ceived with quite unexpected favor. . . . Shaw is indeed
Q
Arms and the Man— Richard Mansfield Sings," Septem
ber 1 8, 1894, p. 5-
9
witty and satirical beyond compare, and his comedy is a
fine thing, but, after all, one who understands the needs;
of the contemporary stage can scarely go wild over it.
It is almost the hardest thing in the world to put upon
the stage a new scene that will touch the emotions, that
9
will thrill or move an audience to sympathetic tears.
But the animosity of the review pales beside the considered
malice of this critic's remarks occasioned by a later pro
duction of Arms and the Man. Though it is too long to be
cited in full, a few lines reveal its tenor:
Since Arms and the Man has been brought across the Atlan
tic, Mr. Shaw has been getting queerer and queerer. His
fondness for paradox seems to indicate that he is desirous
of filling a recently vacated place in Lon letters. 10
The critic confined himself to personal attack and showed
that he misunderstood Shaw's career and irony. The "recently
vacated place in London letters" was an allusion to Oscar
Wilde and was meant to be a slur-by-association of Shaw's
character. Thus, early in Shaw's American career, there wa^
^"Mr. Mansfield as Bluntschli and His Associates,"
p. 10. The review is signed E. A. D. A subsequent article I
on drama that appeared on October 3, 1897 was signed Edward j
A. Dithmar. This was the E. A. D. of the reviews.
10Edward A. Dithmar, "Review of Arms and the Man," |
April 28, 1895, p. 12. ;
10
a presage of all the non-literary ad homlnem criticism to
come.
The reaction to The Devil's Disciple was similar. On
the positive side, the critic deserved credit for seeing
that the play offered an original view of life, and though
cast in the form of farce, was fundamentally serious.
Its view of life, and the human passions and virtues, is
singular and seems new on the stage. It is not a light
satirical comedy like Arms and the Man, but a serious and
in not a few passages a powerful play, dealing with the
most sacred emotions with a seeming disregard for the
conventionalities.^
"A seeming disregard for the conventionalities" was an unin
tentional irony of understatement, but the problem withthis
critic was that he took Shaw's deliberate stage claptrap
too seriously:
Some of the scenes are very strong, all are fresh and
unhackneyed. The sombre opening, with its development
of grim humor, the scene of Dick’s impetuous self-
sacrifice, the hasty court-martial with lively Johnnie
Burgoyne bandying words with the quick-witted prisoner,
and the scene of the improvised gallows, are as fine as
anything lately seen on the stage. (p. 6)
The critic was right in saying that Shaw gave a new verve
i
and twist to those scenes, but they were not unhackneyed;
11"Mr. Mansfield as Dudgeon," October 5, 1897* P- 6. j
IX
IP
therein lay the humor. The degree of seriousness with
which the critic took the play can be seen in his conclud
ing remarks: "Yet the play does not ridicule poetical hero
ism. Not at all. We admire Dick hugely and feel for him
keenly" (p. 6).
Two years later Mansfield revived The Devil's Disciple
as part of his repertory, and the critic of the Times wrote
of it with a mixture of praise and reproof:
Bernard Shaw's smartly ironical drama called The Devil's
Disciple wears very well for a piece of its character,
and the performance of it given at the Garden theatre last
evening by Mr. Mansfield and his company was obviously
enjoyed by the audience. To be sure, people who do not
know the play continue to be misled by the idea they
receive, because of Shaw's imperfect stagecraft, that
Anthony Anderson is a coward who runs away to save his
neck.^
In the notice given to the first production of The Devil's
Disciple,the critic had said that Dick had won the sympathy
of the audience, but in this review the critic stated that:
12
"The critics agreed, Shaw records, chuckling over
having taken them in with a box of the stalest melodramatic
stunts, that it was novel— original, as they put it— to the
verge of audacious eccentricity." Henderson, p. 451. Hen
derson does not give the source of the quotation.
"Mansfield Revives Bernard Shaw's American Drama,"
December 19, 1899, p. 3.
12
He [Dick] cannot be said to win sympathy, but probably
the author would regard the actor who did as much as that
for his gruff overfrank hero as a bad artist who misinteiv
preted him. (p. 3)
It would seem that the Times could not make up its mind
about Shaw and that it could not forget its original
animosity.
The last Shaw play given by Richard Mansfield was a
revival of Arms and the Man which was put on at the request
of Mrs. Mansfield, who wished to appear as Raina in her
farewell performance. With only a slight reservation the
reviewer liked the play.
It is not exactly to the point whether Shaw's strokes are
fairly dealt; his meaning is perfectly clear to persons
14
of reasonable intelligence and the piece acts very well.
The problem for the drama critics of the Times was that
they were never certain how much credit to give to Mansfield,
I
whom they admired and respected, and how much credit to give
1 I n j
to the eccentric Shaw. ^ They were reluctant to recognize •
Shaw because they felt the plays were good theatre in spite j
^"Mr. Mansfield's Engagement," January 8, 1900, p. 5* i
IS
"The reviews and even theatrical notices all spoke of !
Mansfield in terms that show both affection and something |
approaching awe. See the Times; see also William Winter.
13
of the author, and because the man seemed to contradict
everything respectable. They liked the entertainment, but
they resented being forced to think in the theatre at all,
for they preferred sentiment, respectability, and conven
tionality to stimulation. The Times was not certain about
Shaw, and above all it was not certain he was worth the
effort to understand.
Mansfield and The New York Tribune
Shaw's reception by the Tribune was the work of William
Winter, who was drama critic on that paper from 1865 to
1909* The Oxford Companion to the Theatre says that
his enormous success— he was the most conspicuous figure
in American dramatic criticism of the period— rested
solely on the mentality of his readers. During his long
career he rarely committed himself to an opinion at vari-
•I ZT
ance with that of the great majority of his readers.
Therefore, Winter can be considered the spokesman for his
time. His criticism is most useful because it reflects
exactly the kind of mentality with which Shaw loved to tilt:
that of the middle-class burgher.
Winter came closer to understanding Shaw than did the
Times, for he had some keen insights, and he tended to stick
^Thomas Quinn Curtiss, "William Winter" (London, 1964),
p. 845.
14
to the drama Itself rather than attack Shaw personally;
The reviews were written with a degree of discernment and
In a style that conveyed the Illusion of judiciousness; at
least on the surface, Winter did not betray the provincial
antipathy of the Times. He compared Shaw to some great
names, but the inner core of Winter's judgment was vitiated
by the same critical premise that made it impossible for
the Times to appreciate Shaw, namely, that the theatre is
not for ideas. Winter did not want to think any more than
did the Times and the result was confusion for both.
It is clear in the following review of Arms and the
Man, September 18, 1894, that Winter was uncertain. The
word "puzzled" sums up his reaction.
The spectator of Arms and the Man is likely to be puzzled
for a little while as to its meaning and purpose. Just
what the author intended to imply it would be far from
safe to pronounce, but it is altogether likely that the
sooner the spectator gives up trying to discover any
meaning or purpose in it at all, the better he will enjoy
Winter used the word "puzzled" again in his remarks about
the April 23, 1895 production of the play. "The play . . .
18
leaves the mind . . . just a little puzzled."
^"Arms and the Man," p. 7*
1^"Arms and the Man,1 1 p. 7»
15
But he said that Shaw was like Swift, Sterne and Gilbert
in his use of satire.
Three years later when Mansfield produced The Devil’s
Disciple (October, 1897)> Winter's language was unchanged:
Mr. Shaw has a taste for writing puzzles when he writes
plays, and he gave to his delineation of Richard, quite I
from the force of habit, as it appeared, a little of the
outward semblance of a puzzle. But nobody is puzzled.
It is clear from the start that . . . [Dudgeon] is Mr.
Shaw's idea of a hero. The man himself says that a hero
is the same thing as a fool. But again nobody is puzzled
He does not believe it any more than Mr. Shaw does.
Mr. Shaw puzzles his audience with regard to only one
character, the minister, Anthony Anderson, and perhaps
the clever ones are not deceived even about him. In Arms
id
and the Man it was impossible to feel sure about anybody. ^
Winter protested too much. He said that there were
puzzles that yet were really not puzzles. He said that
Anderson was the only difficult character, but not to the
i
clever, and he remarked that it was impossible to feel sure!
about anyone in Arms and the Man. This was meant as a
compliment to Shaw's increasing mastery of stagecraft; yet I
it shows a sense of frustration in the face of the ambiguity
in the drama itself. For Winter knew the puzzles were
^ " The Devil's Disciple," October 6, 1897, p. 6.
16
there, but he was unable to state their nature, or even to
outline his own confusion. He was uncertain about Shaw.
Concerning the last performance of a Shaw play that
Mansfield gave in New York, Arms and the Man, the Tribune
20
had little to say that it had been produced. The best
that can be said for the Tribune is that its critic, Winter,
tried to understand and classify the strange new dramatist.
It was a struggle.
Mansfield and The World
The third newspaper to be considered is the World.
Its criticism of the Mansfield productions showed the most
discernment, for there was recognition of the intelligence
of Shavian comedy, its social implications, and its high
artistry. The World reported that Shavian drama had become
fashionable, but on the negative side, its critic felt that
the plays were too clever to be popular.
SHAW'S PLAY IS CAVIARE
Three quarters of the people in the house last night went
home befogged. ... In his present benighted state, the
general playgoer will decline to enter into all the nice
ties, the refinements, the profundities, the ironies of
2G"Mr. Mansfield's Closing Week," January 9, 1900, p. 6.
17
Shaw's work, which none the less will charm the Intel-
PI
lectual.
These judgments were later repeated in the review of The
Devil's Disciple (1897)* "Prom a box office standpoint,
Arms and the Man was perhaps too clever. The Devil's
22
Disciple will in certain localities be misunderstood."
The critic attributed wibdom to Shaw. "The Devil's Disciple
. . . is equally refreshing from a mental point of view for
its wit, satire, dramatic force and human wisdom" (p. 7)*
None of the other critics had gone so far as to attribute
"wisdom" to Shaw, so that Meltzer was ahead of his time
in accepting the dramatist as a sage. But he failed to
see that the drama of thought was the coming thing because,
like many other critics, he was limited by the standards
of his age.
Mansfield and the Magazines and Books
In the magazines and learned journals of the time,
Mansfield's Shaw productions were, for the most part, unno
ticed. The two articles that were written echoed the
PI
September 18, 1894, p. 5* The review is signed
MELTZER.
2 2"Shaw's Incisive Satire," October 5, 1897, p. 7.
The review is unsigned, but the tone and style point to
Meltzer.
18
criticism of the newspapers, but again, there was no unqual*
i
ified praise; for example, an unsigned review in Critic;
An Illustrated Monthly Review of Literature, Art and Life
said that Arms and the Man was
one of the keenest, brightest and most entertaining bits
of satire that has been seen in this neighborhood for a
long time . . . but there is danger that it may not be
27
appreciated by the audiences. J
The Devil's Disciple (1897) was received by the Critic with
the same qualified praise, though with a stronger rebuke
at the end of the review.
. . . but the courtmartial scene, although full of bril
liant wit, is manifestly an absurdity. . . . Mr. Shaw
positively spoils his work by giving rein to his cynical
imagination at the wrong time and in the wrong place.
Not enough time had elapsed to enable the commentators
on drama to write books on Shaw, and therefore this was the|
extent of the notice that Mansfield's Shaw productions
received in the literature of the time. There was no
Emerson to greet Shaw on the threshold of a great career.
g3”Arms and the Man at the Herald Square,1 1 XXV (N. S.
XXVIII), October 9, 1897, 209*
o i l !
"The Devil's Disciple at the Fifth Avenue," XXXI j
! (N. S. XXVIII), October 9, 1897, 209-
19
He was received with a mixture of amusement, delight, skep
ticism, and impatience. The critics were certain that he
was a clever entertainer, but they were uncertain of his
rank as a dramatist because they did not understand him.
CHAPTER II
SHAW'S ESTABLISHMENT AND TRIUMPH: THE PRODUCTIONS
OF ARNOLD DALY ET AL: 1903-1920
Preface: Context of the Criticism
Arnold Daly popularized Shavian drama in America. The
December, 1903> production of Candida made a star of Daly,
a celebrity of Shaw, and from that time on, America con
sidered Shaw an important playwright. Just how important
he was constituted a debate that added to his fame, if not
his reputation; for the critics were divided into camps.
There were the conservatives, the general public, the
modernists, and the few who understood.
The conservatives, like William Winter, tended to discount;
Shaw as an irresponsible clown who was deficient in morals,
in sincerity, and in depth. They considered Shaw a perni
cious influence and an entertainer, not a dramatist. The
general public were amused by Shaw, but they were also
scandalized because they were not certain how wicked the
plays were, and this question made the drama more intrigulr^.
Thus, confusion created a market for a seemingly endless
proliferation of articles "explaining" Shaw.
20 !
21 |
The modernists were the progressives who were weary of:
Victorian melodrama and yearned for a drama that had some
thing to express. Critics like H. L. Mencken hailed Shaw
as a champion of iconoclasm and as a partisan in the fight
against the establishment.1 Finally, there seems always to
have been a small number of critics who insisted that Shaw
had been praised and condemned for the wrong reasons.
These critics, like Jacques Barzun, have contended that
p
Shaw has been misread and misunderstood. Since these posi
tions have constituted the range of Shaw's critical recep
tion, it is important to isolate them and elaborate on
their nature. This will be done by following the reactions
to the productions in chronological order.
But before considering the productions, something
should be said about Daly as a producer, for Daly's person
ality qualified the reception of Shaw. Like the dramatist,
Daly was something of a rebel. The young actor disliked
the spectacular melodrama of his day and championed a more
challenging drama, and his successful production of Candida
was in itself iconoclasm because Shaw was not supposed to
i
be popular, and a Shavian drama seemed to need an established
I
star like Mansfield to carry it. Though Daly was an upstart^
|
]
^•Qeorge Bernard Shaw (Boston, 1905), passim.
: ■ |
2 !
"Bernard Shaw in Twilight," The Kenyon Review, V
[jSummer^ .19431,-321=346-*____________________________________ i
22
Candida conquered New York so completely that Broadway never
forgot it. Daly went on to produce other Shaw plays such as
The Man of Destiny (February 9» 1904); How She Lied to Her
Husband (September 26, 1904); You Never Can Tell (January 9>
1905)i Mrs. Warren’s Profession (October 30, 1905); and Arms
and the Man (April 16, 1906). Mrs. Warren's Profession
literally caused a riot. The play was received with a
hysteria that can be taken as a symbol of the confusion and
irrationality with which Shavian drama in general was re
ceived. Everyone had his say about Mrs. Warren's Profession^
but few read it, and fewer still understood it or even tried
to exercise impartial judgment.
However, all of this controversy took its toll on Daly,
He wearied of the strain, and his career as an interpreter
of Shaw was over after his 1915 production of Arms and the
Man. Daly had shown that Shavian drama could be popular,
and he even took How She Lied to Her Husband onto a vaude-
ville stage and played it successfully as a skit.
Though Daly's career went into a decline, Shaw's star I
continued to rise. By 1915 he was acknowledged the best
j
dramatist on Broadway. Other producers followed Daly's lead
and each Shaw play in its turn seemed to dazzle New York
more. The word "brilliant" was worn out in the discussions
of Shavian drama.
23
Daly and the Newspapers
Arnold Daly's production of Candida (December 9, 1903),
hit New York like a bomb.^ It sent shock waves of awareness
through the critics and public at the twofold discovery of a
masterful dramatist and a talented new actor. The press
recorded the progress of the triumph, from bored indulgence
to delighted subjection. Candida and Daly did more than
please New York; they conquered it. As evidence of this,
there was a long and respectful analysis in which the critic
praised Shaw lavishly and concluded that "the superiority of
Candida is both technical and spiritual. . . . such another
divination of hearts and souls does not exist in the English
,.4
drama. Even the conservative William Winter praised
Candida as "one of the most human, interesting and brilliant
of Mr. Shaw's plays.Winter saw himself as more than a
^This production had a run of 133 performances. As a
source of this information, I am following James M. Salem,
"Shaw on Broadway," The Shaw Review, XL (January 1 9 6 8), 30.
This article is a compilation taken from the Best Plays of
the Year and Yearbook of the Drama series (New York), edited
by Burns Mantle and others. Mr. Salem put the production
statistics of Shaw plays in a convenient list. This list
will hereafter be referred to as Salem.
^John Corbin, "The Dramatist of Donnybrook Fair," The
New York Times, December 13# 1903# Section III, p. 25*
^"Candida," The New York Tribune, January 3, 1904,
Section II, p. 8.
24
i
guide to entertainment; he saw himself as an arbiter of
good taste, a latter day Dr. Johnson. Therefore, he soon
felt compelled to protest the Shaw craze: "Mr. Shaw's play
is attracting audiences that are, if not large, at least
entertained and interested. Some of them claim to be stimu
lated."^ The cynicism and malice of this remark is a meas
ure of the degree of Daly's great success with Candida.
Consistently, Winter attacked You Never Can Tell
7
(January 6, 1905)# though it too found favor with playgoers.'
Winter again protested that "Mr. 0. B. Shaw's prolix and
tedious farce, You Never Can Tell, has proved agreeable to
Q
the frivolous, fad-loving section of the public." The
reviewer for the Times disagreed with this opinion and
wrote that the play "was distinctly a triumph for Bernard
Shaw. ^ But the latter writer was concerned that the play
lacked "some of the qualities which make for success in the
theatre" (p. 5). The critic then read Shaw a lecture
ft
"Candida," The New York Tribune, January 24, 1904,
Section II, p. 8.
7
'129 performances. Salem, p. 32.
^"You Never Can Tell," The New York Tribune, January 17,
1905, P. 7.
|
^A. K., "Mr. Shaw a Success in Spite of Actors,"
January 10, 1905, P* 5* I have been unable to identify A.K.
25
because "as long as he elects to write for the theatre, it
i t
is incumbent upon him to recognize its rules and limitations
(p. 5)- The reviewer closed his article with unconscious
irony by noting that at the end of You Never Can Tell the
"curtain calls were numerous" (p. 5)* This notice, amusing
in view of Shaw's success, was typical of most of the criti
cism. However, it was certain that You Never Can Tell was
"one of the strong successes of the season."10
With Candida and You Never Can Tell, Broadway had been
so dazzled and conquered that the critics never forgot it.
The tide of praise rose, not without a strong undercurrent
of fear of Shaw's principles, but with an increasing convic
tion that the dramatist had something to contribute, and
that he was an important playwright. As one writer put it,
"Today the public welcomes a man like Bernard Shaw, and it
suddenly develops that the word entertainment is not syn
onymous with vacuity."11 In corroboration of this, the
public supported the play.
After the successful run of You Never Can Tell, Daly
decided to produce John Bull's Other Island (October 9,
10"These Are Too Good to Let Get Away," The New York
American, January 15, 1905* p. 26.
lluMr. Shaw's Latest Philippic in Its Relation to the j
Drama of the Times," The New York Times, October 1, 1905,
P* 9- !
1905)* but though the critics were kind, the public dis
dained it. The reviewer for the Times announced that the
new Shaw play was "A MASTERPIECE OP SATIRE";12 however, he
was soon forced to predict the demise of John Bull1s Other
Island because "With its brilliancy of satire it is much
too far above the average head to continue long as a popular
acted play."William Winter ignored the production, while
The New York American reported only that John Bull's Other
Island was "continuing."1^ The length of the run was due
more to Daly's determination to keep it on than because of
public approval, and after less than eight performances,
the play was withdrawn.
With his next play, Mrs. Warren's Profession (October
25, 1905)* Daly went from the critical frying pan into the
fire of controversy, riot, and arrest for putting on an
indecent show. New York was in an uproar over Mrs. Warren, |
i
and the critics, who should have been better informed, were
swept away by the mob hysteria surrounding the production.
The reviewer for the American set the mood when he paid
120ctober 11, 1905, p. 11.
13"John Bull's Other Island," October 15, 1905, p. 10. |
^"These Have Proven Their Right to Remain," October 15,
1905, p. 2 6. s
15Salem, p. 31.____________________________________ j
27
tribute to Daly's courage for daring to put on Mrs. Warren's
Profession, and he closed his article by warning that no
children would be admitted. The critic for the Tribune, j
presumably William Winter, wrote that the play was "an
affront to decency and a blot on the theatre."1^ A little I
later Winter was able to be more specific:
G. B. Shaw utterly lacks sincerity in his treatment of
the revolting theme of the play, and lacking sincerity
in his treatment, the drama is neither interesting nor
worthwhile.
The usually staid Times also lost its poise and con
tributed to the sensationalism by giving front page cover
age to the opening night and to the efforts of the decency
IQ
vigilantes to close Mrs. Warren's Profession altogether. *
The critic for the Times summarized his review with the
^"Mary Shaw the Mrs. Warren in Mrs. Warren's Profes
sion," October 29, 1905* P- 16.
^"Shaw Play Condemned," October 31, 1905* P* 7-
■^"The Shaw Rumpus," The New York Tribune, November 5,;
1905* P. 3-
IQ
^These were Anthony Comstock and Police Commissioner j
MeAdoo. For an account of this bizarre event see George E. i
Wellworth, "Mrs. Warren Comes to America, or the Bluenoses, !
; l
the Politicians and the Procurers," The Shaw Review, II
| (May, 1959)* 8-16.______________________________________ ___
28
caption, "A PLAY STUPID AND VICIOUS."20 Daly had declared
that he would abide by the Judgment and decisions of the
professional critics of the daily press. In view of their
adverse judgments, he had no alternative but to withdraw
Mrs. Warren's Profession, and on November 6, 1905, he
offered Candida in its place.
The controversy over Mrs. Warren's Profession seemed
to take the fight out of Daly, for from that time on, he
confined himself to the acceptable plays such as Arms and
the Man (1906; 1915), Candida (1905; 1915), You Never Can
Tell (1915), and The Man of Destiny (1 9 0 6; 1915). These
he did with distinction and critical approval. For example,
the critic who replaced Winter on the Tribune softened one
of Winter's indictments: "The charge that Shaw's characters
are marionettes worked by strings from their creator's brain
21
is often true; it is not true in Candida."
How She Lied to Her Husband had a special place in
Daly's career, for not only did he frequently put it on as
part of his repertory, but he also had a successful run with
it as a specialty act in vaudeville. This was a remarkable!
achievement in Daly's career as a popularizer of Shaw
because the audiences received the play with delight and
200ctober 3 1, 1905, p. 9-
21"Arnold Daly Revives Candida," May 21, 1915, P* 9* j
29
2 2
enthusiasm. But playing in vaudeville at all was a sign
of decline in the great actor who had been mismanaging his I
affairs. He suffered a series of personal and professional
disasters and died in 1 9 2 7.
Arnold Daly was the most outstanding exponent of
Shavian drama during this period, but Daly's work was only
the beginning of a veritable Shaw boom, since the success
of Candida was not lost on other producers, such as Robert
Loraine who opened in New York September 5, 1905 with Man
23
and Superman, a production which recorded 192 performances.
This record of performances proved that Man and Superman
was a box-office success; however, little was written of
the play other than notices of its existence and continuing
run. Loraine revived Man and Superman again in November
24
1912, and this time it had thirty-two performances. Again
the critics withheld comment. Most foreign companies were
treated with a certain reserve, but the silence surrounding
the productions of Man and Superman was excessive.
22
Daly put it on at Keith-Proctor's Fifth Avenue
Theatre in 1906, and again at the Palace in 1914 and in
1924. See the biography by Berthold Henry Goldsmith, ArnaLcj
Daly (New York, 1927), pp. 33 and 3 8.
i
2^Salem, p. 31.
24
Salem, p. 31*
30
Perhaps, at this point, the best way to give an over- |
view of most of the non-Daly productions would be to pre
sent a list of them. These are the Shavian plays which were
put on by other companies than that of Daly.
Non-Daly Shaw Productions: 1906-19172^
Caesar and Cleopatra-November 1906-Forbes Robertson-49
performances.
Captain Brassboundfs Converslon-January 1907-Ellen Terry-
14 performances.
Mrs. Warren's Profession-March 1907-Mary Shaw-25
performances.
Widower's Houses-March 1907-16 performances.
Fanny's First Play-November 1912-Granville Barker-2 5 6
performances.
Man and Superman-November 1912-Robert Loraine-32
performances.
The Phllanderer-December 1913-Granville Barker-103 j
performances.
Pygmalion-October 19l4-Mrs. Pat Campbell-72 performances.
Androcles and the Llon-January 1915-Granville Barker-in
repertory.
i
The Doctor's Dllemma-Aprll 1915-Grace George-in repertory. :
Major Barbara-January 1916-Grace George-in repertory. j
! i
25
-"The performance statistics were taken from Salem's
list,-------------------------------------------------------
31
Captain Brassbound's Converslon-March 1915-Qrace George-
in repertory.
Great Catharine-December 1916-Gertrude Kingston-
3 performances
Ml8alllance-September 1917-Willlam Paversham-52 performances.
This list Itself was compiled by noting the references to
the productions in the criticism. It is not intended to
be exhaustive, but rather as an indication of the rising
interest in the plays, and as proof that Shaw's success in
America was not due to Daly alone.
The critical reaction to all of these plays was typi
fied and summed up by the review which Alan Dale wrote on
Misalliance.
Have you ever been on a scenic railway at Coney Island,
and yelled as you were dragged up heights and down depths;
to be landed finally on a small, unimportant platform,
when you immediately began to wonder why you had yelled,
and to realize that the scenic railway had left you with-j
out a solitary sensation? This reminds me of Shaw, in
some of his plays— in this Misalliance for instance. It
was a kind of toboggan.
The critics could not deny the impact of Shaw's drama, but j
they continually quarreled with the dramaturgy and the ideas
i
!
26 '
'Daly Finds Misalliance Sort of Mental Toboggan," Th
_ i
New York American, September 28, 1917» p. 10. j
32
of the plays. They conceded that Shaw's plays had bril
liance, Intellectual vigor, superiority and undeniable
success with the public. Yet there was always a note of
antagonism, a doubt about Shaw's lasting quality and an
ever-present suspicion that Shaw's effects were cheap, that
the Shavian fad would pass, and that his work would ulti
mately be forgotten. The critics could not ignore Shaw
because they were continually forced to give an account of
the proliferating productions, plays which proved that Shaw
was not negligible, and that drama could be entertaining
and still deal intelligently with serious issues. The pro
ductions demonstrated to the reluctant, bedazzled and some
what appalled critics that G. Bernard Shaw was the most
dominant playwright of his time.
Daly and the Magazines and Journals
The effort to penetrate Shaw's irony underlies the
history of Shaw criticism in the United States. Critics
grouped themselves in schools that can be identified by
their degree of sophistication in dealing with the dramatist.
This has already been seen in the newspaper reception of
Shaw, and in the magazines, journals and books the debate
was sharper because the writers had more time to express a
considered judgment.
But the impression one receives of the magazine arti
cles of the period, is not that of free-ranging intelligence
that results in true criticism; rather one has the impres
sion of sheer mass, quantity and volume, the product of an
intensity of feeling that sometimes bordered on insanity.
The intensity of feeling seems to have destroyed judgment
by destroying objectivity. As a gadfly Shaw succeeded all
too well, for many writers spent much of their time attack
ing the projected image of their understanding of Shaw.
They were critical Don Quixotes tilting with imaginary
monsters.
During the Daly period the negative critics were cer
tain that Shaw was ephemeral, insincere, and morally perni
cious. They frequently prefaced their attacks by praising
his brilliancy of style and wit; generally they ended by
damning his ideas and his art. For example, W. Kingsley
Tarpey expressed the frequently repeated charge that "his
characters are not engaged in living their own lives on the
stage, but are doing duty as mouthpieces for the author."2^
F. M. Colby said in The Bookman that Shaw was a "mere de-
28
bater of propositions." Austin Lewis wrote that Shaw was
Austin Lewis wrote that Shaw was a "complete philosophic
2^"English Dramatists of Today," Critic, XXVII (August,
1900), 124. Essentially the same charge was made by G. S.
Street, "Criticism of Shaw," Current Literature, XXIX
(August, 1900), 145.
28"Shaw and The Man of Destiny,"XIX (April, 1904), 160
34
failure. ... he has no logical path of escape from the
jaws of the dragon created by his own infernal cleverness'.'2^
Lewis's attack was not substantiated by any textual analy
sis. In this, the attack was typical of the technique of
most of the critics whether for or against Shaw. They were
content to pronounce judgment without proof. For instance,
The Theatre Magazine for October 1905 asked, "Wnat do we
want with Shaw's half-truths and his falsities? ... he is,
if taken seriously, a menace to public morality."30
To take Shaw seriously or not: that was the question.
•31
Some thought Shaw merely a popular entertainer.-* Others
were sure that "there is malice in the wit and . . . the
idea that he has turned satirist and has something serious
to say is much more amusing than Mr. Shaw's best repartee'.'32
2^"The Nemesis of Bernard Shaw," Overland Monthly,
XLVI (October 1905), 370.
30"Man and Superman," V, p. 239- This same quotation
was repeated in another article, "Is Bernard Shaw a Menace
to Morals," Current Literature, XXXIX (November, 1905), 572.
31Lionel Strachey, "Popularity of Bernard Shaw,"
Critic,XLVII (November, 1905), 415-423- The whole article
is unfavorable.
32"The Yellow Dramatist," Outlook, LXXI (November 24,
1905), 701.
35
They complained of "his inability to think straight,"33 and
asserted that "He has no constructive thought; his ideas
are vague. . . . he has never felt any of the simple univer-
04
sal emotions.They were sure that Shaw would not "en
dure, and that his "bubble reputation will collapse as
rapidly as it has g r o w n . The truth is that these critics
abandoned perception and judgment because they were re
pelled by the subjects of the plays. For example, one
wrote: "A great deal might be said of the strength of the
play, but it leaves far too unpleasant a taste in one's
m o u t h , The Atlantic Monthly ignored Shaw during the
Daly period except for one unfriendly article by H. W.
Boynton, who finally worked himself around to grudging
praise of Shaw: "We must perforce yield him the attention
due to sincerity of impulse and integrity of conduct. We
•^Royal Cortissoz, "Literary Personalities," Outlook,
LXXXI (November 2 5, 1905), 733-
■^Cortissoz, p. 736.
35
J^James L. Ford, "Shaw's Influence on Our Embryo
Dramatists," Harper's Weekly, XLIX (November 2 5, 1905), 1712.
^"Rises to Decline of Bernard Shaw," Current Litera
ture, XXXIX (December 1905), 664.
^ " Mrs. Warren's Profession Staged," Harper's Weekly,
LI (March 30, 1907), 407.
36
cannot quite dismiss him with a shrug." 38 Yet it is clear
that the critic wanted to. The wish to dismiss Shaw like
an Elizabethan all licensed fool was expressed in the
curious tribute: "Shaw is an artist— but a little 'inebri
ate.'"^^ The view that Shaw was irresponsibly garrulous
was frequently expressed as: "With each play his talkative
ness becomes more appalling."^0 But far from a tendency to
regard Shaw lightly was J. Kenneth Mozley's serious analysis
of the philosophic influence of Shaw. He considered Shaw a
4l
menace to morality. Less calm and objective were two
42
polemical articles that appeared in The Catholic World.
They too were concerned with the influence on Shaw's
thought, but they were grossly biased and imperceptive.
3 8"Mr. Shaw as Critic," XCIX (April 1907). 560.
39"collier's Weekly and Bernard Shaw," Bookman, XXVII
(June 1908), 331-
^°"The Growing Garrulousness of Shaw," Current Litera
ture, XLV (July 1908), 8 3.
^"Modern Attacks on Christian Ethics," Living Age,
CCLVIII (May 9. 1908), 359-360.
40
Thomas J. Gerrard, "Marriage and G. B. S.," XC
(January 1912), 467-482. Also Daniel A. Lord, "Martyrs
According to Bernard Shaw," C (February 1 9 1 5), 577-590.
Part II, CII (March 1916), 7 6 8-7 8 0. Part III, CIII (April
1916), 24-37-
37
In 1912, the sensation of the New York season was
Fanny's First Play. But though it was generally admired
as "brilliant," the writer of one article discounted Shaw's
brilliant qualities because they were
employed with such cynical indifference to common sense,
to the truth of nature and to those conventions, feelings
and observances which are the respectable bulwarks of
modern civilization, that they avail nothing or become
4^
entirely pernicious. J
John Bull's Other Island was not a popular success and many
44
unfriendly critics took gleeful note of it. But whether
his drama succeeded or failed the primary concern of most
writers was Shaw's effect on morals.
If Mr. Shaw really felt a prophet's call to uproot the
sexual morality of Christian civilization, the "humorous"
scenes of Man and Superman would be unendurable even to
himself.^
^ " Fanny's First Play: Shaw's Tribute to Shaw," Cur
rent Literature, LIII (November 1912), 5 6 3. This passage
is cited from a review by the drama editor of The Evening
Post.
I l l i
"Shaw for a Mirthless Playhouse," Literary Digest,
XLVI (February 1, 1913), 231-232.
45"Moral Equivocals," Living Age, CCLXXVI (March 8,
1913), 6 3 6.
38
And another critic: "It seems as if the limits of indeli
cacy had now been reached by this school of playwriting
(unless childhood Is to be attacked)." These critics felt
that Shaw was not only irresponsible, but that he was icono
clastic per se, that he was rebellious for the sake of
47
being rebellious. 1
Francis Hackett, drama critic for The New Republic
from 1914 to 1922, had a dislike of Shaw that is not
accounted for In his criticism. He never fully endorsed
him, even when others felt that Shaw had a triumph. Of
Pygmalion he said, "Farce perhaps, is also worth our while.
But one judges this Is accidental farce. As comedy, at any
rate, it Is spurious." Hackett felt that Misalliance was
"careless work" and that Shaw had "dropped the discipline
of self-criticism."^9 Hackett's praise had a tone of doubt
^John Jay Chapman, "Shaw and the Modern Drama: Fan
ny's First Play," Harper's Weekly, LVII (April 19, 1913),1Q.
^See "Rule That Proves the Exception," Nation, XCVII
(October 23, 1913), 380. Also "The Merry Anarchist," The
Nation, XCVII (January 29, 1914), 103-104.
^ " Pygmalion," The New Republic, XII (November 7, 1914)
25-
^"Shaw's Misalliance," The New Republic, XII (Octo
ber 6, 1917), 2 7 6.
39
6 0
that implied ennui and disapproval. In the same vein,
the critic who reviewed Androcles and the Lion (February 4,
1915)» protested that "Mr. Shaw is not incomparable," and
that the audience was undiscriminating: "The spectator's
. . . had thrown their critical faculty to the winds and
were ready to give themselves up to hilarity at the slight-
51
est provocation." So it went with the gloomy prognosti-
cators who predicted Shaw's early demise. By 1915 they
felt that Arms and the Man "had not stood the test of
time."^2 Clayton Hamilton made a valiant effort to get the
perspective of time in to his evaluation when he wrote that
"the plays of Bernard Shaw will ultimately be regarded as
inferior to the plays of J. M. Barrie . . . Pinero . . .
Jones, and . . . Galsworthy."-^
^°See "The Medicine Men: The Doctor's Dilemma," The
New Republic, II (April 10, 1915)* 264. Also "Arms and the
Man," The New Republic, III (May 8, 1915), 18.
"Granville Barker, Shaw and Anatole France at
Wallack’s," Nation, C (February 4, 1915)* 150.
^2"Arms and the Man," Nation, C (May 13j 1915)» 545-
This is the more ironic because 1915 was the year in which
Shaw dominated Broadway.
53"criticism and Creation in the Drama," Bookman, XLIV
(February 1917)> 6 3 0.
40
We have just looked at the critics who attacked Shaw.
The proponents of Shaw tended to be just as fanatic, but
one thing friend and foe had in common: both assumed that
Shaw was in need of infinite explanation, and so the apolo
gies proliferated.
Shaw, we are assured, "is ... no mere jester.
Another wrote that the problem with Shaw is that he is a
seer; "he has the quality of poetic divination, the gift of
reading messages from the invisible world.This was a
magnificent thesis and the statement seems to promise an
elaboration that would be rich in insight. Unfortunately,
the promise was not fulfilled, for there was no sustained
criticism. The public got bits and pieces of suggestive
criticism, like that of Henry A. Beers: "Shaw's . . . tem
perament is wholly that of the comic artist, and he attacks
56
cant with the weapons of irony." This again was a useful
statement, but it was not applied to Shaw's plays at any
length. The critics admitted that there was a Shaw "boom"
^Austin Lewis, "The Point of View of Bernard Shaw,"
Overland Monthly. (January 1904), 4 3. He goes on to provide
a key in pages 43-46.
^Elizabeth Luther Cary, "Apostles of the New Drama,"
The Lamp, XXVII (January 1904), 5 9 7.
56"The English Drama of Today," North American Review,
CLXXX (May 1905)> 751-
41
as early as 1905, and the favorable critics praised his
characterization as much as the unfavorable critics
attacked it.*^ They spoke of "his searching, his remorse
less analysis of character and motive."'*® Thus, ironically,
the criticism of Shaw took on the character of a debate
whose intensity and ambiguity resembled a Shavian drama.
The ambiguity arose from the impossibility of absolutely
classifying a critic as favorable or unfavorable. For
example, there were those who generally did not like or
understand Shaw, but that did not prevent them from having
discernment into what Shaw was doing. "His plays shock not
because they are immoral, but because they are not immoral
in the conventional way," said one.-^
60
As time went by, the Shaw boom grew more triumphant.
For critics began to realize that Shaw had levels of
^"Review of the Dramatic Season," Current Literature,
XXXIX (July 1905), 79.
-^Herman Simpson, "Shaw as Playwright and Philosopher,"
Independent, LIX (July 6, 1905), 36.
59nirigh Bull in the China Shop," Independent, LIX
(November 2, 1905), 1061.
®0, I I, Shaw's Caesar and the Comic Relief," Harper1 s
Weekly, L (November 17, 1906), 1 6 5 0.
42
seriousness. However, it was not until 1911 that a
critic pointed out that "it is only stupid to mistake his
earnestness, his conviction, his tenderness toward pain,
zTp
his sense of justice under all his riotous fooling."
This statement was remarkable in that it was necessary to
make it at all. Similarly, it was the attacks on Shaw's
ability as an artist that prompted some of the criticism
like Edwin Bjorkman's praise of Shaw's "formal perfection
. . . and his character drawing." 3 But the familiar
charges against Shaw as a dramatist continued. For this
reason Shaw continued to need apologists to reassure the
concerned that, for example, in Candida "there is no attack
upon Christian morals or ideals, but only upon a system
which excludes or obscures the essential features of
Christianity."^ This need for reassurances was another
61"Bernard Shaw's Religion," Current Literature, XLII
(February 1907), 198-220. See also Felix Grendon, "Miscon
ceptions Concerning Shaw," Poet Lore, XX (September 1909)*
376-386.
^2"Inspection of Bernard Shaw," Harper's Weekly, LV
(April 22, 1911), 6.
63"Serious Bernard Shaw," American Review of Reviews,
XLIII (April 1911), 428.
^George Lowther, "Two Modern Plays," Living Age,
CCLXXIV (September 28, 1912), 782.
43
£ r
measure of Shaw's "triumphant success." It was such a
success which increased, until in 1915 one critic reported
that "Seven plays by George Bernard Shaw in one season is
a record made in New York this year."
New York liked The Philanderer more as a finished
British production than a play.^ Pygmalion "was presented
for the first time in America" and was made "a regular part
fZQ
of the repertory" of the German theatre in March of 1914.
However, it was Mrs. Pat Campbell who dazzled New York in
Pygmalion (October 1 9 1 4).^ Miss Grace George's production
of Major Barbara (January 1916), was received with the
"highest praise in every phase of drama.Miss George's
^Clayton Meeker Hamilton, "Fanny's First Play,"
Everybody's Magazine, XXVII (December 1912), 808.
^"Shaw's Plays in New York," Outlook, CX (June 23,
1915)i 404.
^"First Performance of The Philanderer," The Nation,
XCVIII (January 1, 1914), 17-19*
^^"Shaw's Pygmalion in German," The Nation, XCVIII
(April 2, 1914), 373*
^"Transforming power of Phonetics: Shaw's Pygmalion,"
The Nation, XCIV (October 2, 1914), 504-305*
^°Lawrence Gilman, "Mr. Shaw's Major Barbara," North
American Review, CCIII (January 1916), 137*
44
production of Captain Brassbound's Conversion (April 1916),
71
was successful also.
By December, 1916, it looked as if the conquest was
complete: "The chief intellectual interest afforded by the
theatre in New York, season after season, is to be sought
in the production of some piece of Mr. Bernard Shaw."^2
Even a poor play by Shaw was ranked above the best of
7*i 7 4
others. Some critics saw Shaw as a modern Congreve.
Harold C. Goddard suggested that he was a latter-day
Chaucer:
Radical sentiments from present day writers always smell
of anarchism to some noses; whereas the same sentiments
culled from authors of some centuries of classical stand
ing become highly respectable.75
^ " Captain Brassbound's Conversion," The New Republic,
(April 8, 1916), 209-
^2Lawrence Gilman, "Shaw's Getting Married," North
American Review, CCIV (December 1916), 925-
^Willa Siebert Cather, "Fanny's First Play,"
McClure's Magazine, XL (March 1913), 64-66.
74
' Isador Edelman, "Literary Relationships of Shaw,"
Nation, XCVII (September 18, 1913), 2 5 9.
^"Bernard Shaw and the Law," Nation, XCVII (November
27, 1913), 97.
Mr. Goddard put his finger on a problem: if more
critics had looked at Shaw from the perspective of literary
history, there might have been greater appreciation of the
plays. Mr. Goddard, unfortunately, did not write an
expanded treatise on this useful point. Like many critics,
Mr. Goddard possibly felt that no further explanation was
necessary for the literate, or possible for the ignorant.
Another attempt to understand Shaw through Arnold's
method of touchstone criticism was that of Edward Storer,
who compared Shaw to Wilde and Ibsen. Storer concluded
that Shaw's "central intuitive intention was mainly a nega
tive one. Yet that is not so easy an accomplishment. It
implies that to effect it a man must have that objectivity
which is the artist's birthright."7^
In all the profusion of critical comment at this time,
there were a few articles which showed the breadth of view
of the superior critic. One of these was an article by the
Reverend Gavin P. Duffy, who grappled with the problem of
irony in Shaw and emerged with a just evaluation of the
77
dramatist's work.''
^"Dramatists of Today," Living Age, CCLXXXI (April 11,
1914), 373-
77"Shavian Religion," Century, LXXXVII (April 1914),
908-919. It is too long to be cited at length.
46
Above all he showed that the problem of irony had to
be solved if Shaw was to be read intelligently. Unfortu
nately, Gavin's article was not widely read, although one
magazine recognized the importance of his remarks and
78
printed a digest of them. A brilliant article regret
tably unsigned, was a forerunner of Barzun's article on
America's failure to understand Shaw, but unlike Barzun,
this writer assigned a reason for the failure. The critic
wrote:
It is not because he is callous and frivolous that Shaw
has been cast from Olympus. If a reason must be offered,
not In defense but in elucidation, is it not mainly
because patience has departed from those who must neces-
7Q
sarily hate Momus, the children of uncorrected heart. ^
Lawrence Gilman was another writer who saw greatness and
80
wisdom in Shaw's work. With the exception of these last
three articles, most of the criticism during this period
contains the usual conclusion that Shaw's plays are really
"Bernard Shaw's Disturbing Relation to Modern Reli
gion," Current Opinion, LVI (May 1914), 373*
^"Captain of Revolt," The New Republic, II (February
2 0, 1915), 6 3.
80
"Plato, Dante and Bernard Shaw," The New Republic,
VI (February 12, 1916), 39-41.
47
not drama, followed by the concession "but they act like
wildfire."81
To sum up: with some notable exceptions, the range of
critics both for and against Shaw were generally confused.
Blind leaders of the blind, they constituted a chorus of
confusion, questioning, fear and rash judgment. Those who
were adverse to Shaw saw his brilliance and feared what
they could not understand. They predicted his artistic
demise, called him a fool, and tried to write him off the
contemporary scene. Those who were partisans of Shaw were
either iconoclasts like H. L. Mencken, popularizers like
James Huneker, W. L. Phelps and Archibald Henderson, or
disciples who felt that Shaw needed no exegesis. Thus, a
critic of a later generation could complain that there
Qp
simply was no criticism of Shaw.
Daly and the Books
The critical notice that Shaw received in the books of
dramatic criticism during the Daly period paralleled that
ftl
"Major Barbara," Harperfs Weekly, LXI (December 25,
1915)* 611. See also P. Littell, "Shaw Comedy," The New
Republic, V (January 22, 1916), 311.
Op
Stephen Spender, "The Riddle of Shaw," Nation,
CLXVTII (April 30, 1949), 503-505* Mr. Spender is British,
but his comment sums up the situation so well that it
seemed appropriate to cite it.
received in the journals. However, there was a shift in
emphasis from concern for Shaw as a moral influence to an
attempt to classify Shaw as a dramatist. In fact, the
criticism in books during the Daly period constitutes a
controversy on whether Shaw could be classified as a drama
tist at all. Critics debated the question of his dramatic
technique, his excessive intellectuality, his lack of high
seriousness, his lack of feeling, his lack of objectivity,
and his failure to create believable stage characters. The
supporters of Shaw conceded many of these charges and wrote
their appreciations as apologies in which they protested,
often too much, that Shaw was a dramatist despite his
limitations.^
The most facile and most frequent charge leveled
against Shaw was that he was devoid of dramatic technique.
For example, Norman Hapgood wrote:
Mr. Shaw made a fuss because the American public didn't
like that scene in The Devil's Disciple, where the minis
ter becomes a soldier in about four seconds, rushes about
the room making speeches, but lacks time to kiss his wife
or say anything that would expose the plot. The public
talks in terms of morals and metaphysics, but behind its
words is usually a perception of technical or imaginative
■^Richard Burton, George Bernard Shaw: The Man and
the Mask (New York, 1916), Passim.
49
weakness. Mr. Shaw didn't know how to make a good story
84
or an efficient character.
Yet toward the end of this book, the author inconsistently
said that "The Devil's Disciple won a really popular
.185
success. ^
As if answer to Hapgood, H. L. Mencken published a
handbook in which he declared that "In all the history of
the English stage no man has exceeded him in technical
Q/r
resources." Specifically what those technical resources
were Mencken did not say. Mencken did say that Man and
Superman was Shaw's masterpiece but that it was too long
to play. This was a curious contradiction, for a play
should be suitable for the stage. If it is not, it is
hardly a masterpiece, for surely a man of great "technical
resources" could have made a playable play. Mencken's
fundamental reason for liking Shaw was made clear in
another remark:
The vogue that his plays have had of late in the United
States is to be ascribed, in the main, to the yearning to
appear "advanced" and intellectual which afflicts Ameri
cans of a certain class. The very fact that they do not
understand him makes him seem worthy of admiration.^
84The Stage in America (New York, 1901), p. 47-
85p. 3 0 2.
86Qeorge Bernard Shaw: His Plays (Boston, 1905)* P* xxix.
^Mencken, p. xxix.
50
Mencken ascribed Shaw's success "in the main" to a certain
prestige hunting, presumably of the middle classes that
Mencken was always satirizing in The Smart Set. Thus it
would seem that Mencken liked Shaw as a fellow iconoclast,
88
and as a club with which to beat his favorite target.
Mencken's book was illuminated by a fine sensibility, and
his commentary was useful at the time, but it had little
to offer as dramatic criticism.
Along the same lines, Edward Everett Hale, Jr., wrote
that "Mr. Shaw's real matter of importance is not his
dramatic art, but his ideas or way of thinking."®9 The
author then struggled with the question of classification
and finally concluded, "But of course it is of no earthly
consequence whether Mr. Shaw is a dramatist or not. He
entertains and enlightens us."90
Another critic, Arthur Ruhl, illustrated the kind of
judgment that would result if the critic was not interested
in the playwright's ideas.
^Mencken later turned completely against Shaw.
Apparently Shaw was not iconoclastic enough for him. See
Stanley Weintraub, "Apostate Apostle: H. L. Mencken as
Shavophile and Shavophobe," Educational Theatre Journal,
XII (October i9 6 0), 184-190.
^Dramatists 0f Today (London, 1906), p. 104.
90Hale, p. 125.
51
As drama his plays are not Important. Stripped of their
witty lines, which often might as well be delivered by
one person as another, and their quaint characterization,
which often consists in putting Mr. Shaw's sophisticated
ideas in the mouth of some one who in actual life would
never have had them, stripped in short of the things
which might have come from a novelist or satirical essay-
91
ist as well as from a playwright, not much is left.
George Jean Nathan ridiculed the idea that Shaw was
not technically proficient, and made merciless fun of such
critics, particularly Clayton Hamilton. "That Shaw under
stands perfectly the technique of the theatre is evident
to anyone who cares to go to the trouble of studying
closely his plays.But the idea that Shaw was something
other than a dramatist had become firmly established as a
critical tradition, never to be affected in the minds of
many by any objective analysis and scholarly research. The
same old charges seemed fated to be repeated in perpetuity.
For example, James Huneker sounded the theme: "In effect
the author says: 'To the devil with all art and plays, my
91
Second Nights: People and Ideas of the Theatre
Today (New York, 1914), p. 41.
^2The Popular Theatre (New York, 1918), p. 27.
52
play with the rest'. What I wish to do Is to tell you how
to run the universe.'"^
The Idea that Shaw subordinated art to message is
related to the second most frequent charge leveled at the
playwright. He was accused of excessive intellectuality.
The critics who leveled it felt that Shaw was all head and
no heart. Thus, Walter Pritchard Eaton generalized:
%
Probably few people have failed to experience a kind of
disappointment, a sense of vague lack, even at the most
brilliant of Shaw’s comedies. They get to the head, but
not below it. . . . for they leave the emotions
04
untouched.
^ Iconoclasts: A Book of Dramatists (New York, 1919)>
p. 263.
9^The American Stage of Today (Boston, 1908), p. 2 9 9.
Clayton Hamilton rated Candida over Mrs. Warren's Profes
sion because Mrs. Warren's Profession "is interesting
merely to the intellect and leaves the audience cold,
whereas the pleasant play is interesting also to the emo
tions and stirs the audience to sympathy." The Theory of
the Theatre (New York, 1910), p. 2 2 5. See also Francis
Grierson, The Invincible Alliance and Other Essays (New
York, 1 9 1 3), p. 166.
53
q c ;
Mr. Eaton went on to rate Barrie above Shaw. ^ The clear
est statement of this position was made by Ludwig Lewisohn
in 1915:
Shaw . . . is not ... a creative artist at all. The
sharp contemporaneousness and vividness of his best
setting deceives us. His plays are the theatre of the
q6
analytic intellect, not the drama of man.^
It is interesting that Lewisohn concluded his criticism of
Shaw with a note of acceptance that seems Inconsistent with
his previous judgment. "The dramas of Shaw play admirably
and they will be played increasingly as our English-
speaking audiences grow in critical maturity,"^ But per
haps consistency is too much to expect from critics who
tried to deal with a writer who delighted in paradox. Thus,
the attacks continued, and so did the controversy.
^The American Stage of Today, pp. 299-300.
^ The Modern Drama: An Essay in Interpretation (New
York, 1915)» P* 201. Lewisohn later wrote more favorably
about Shaw.
The Modern Drama, p. 201.
CHAPTER III
SHAW'S RECEPTION IN THE 1920's: THE PRODUCTIONS
OP THE THEATRE GUILD ET AL.
From 1920 until the death of Shaw in 1950 the Theatre
Guild dominated the productions of Shaw plays in New York.
Therefore a few words of explanation of the Guild's rela
tionship to the dramatist are in order. Shaw was so satis
fied with the Guild's production of Heartbreak House (1920)
that he gave the association what amounted to a franchise
on his work, a practical appointment of the Guild as agent,
making it necessary to obtain the Guild's clearance for any
Shaw production in New York. Prom 1920 to 1950 (The Dev
il 's Disciple) the Guild produced twenty of his plays, some
of which like Saint Joan made money, while others like Back
to Methuselah did not. But all of the plays gained pres
tige for the Guild because Shaw's reputation had become a
prestigious and salable commodity. The rule of the Guild
was,"When in doubt, play Shaw," for Shaw's name stood for
superior drama.* Since the Guild was a subscription
^Lawrence Langner, G. B. S. and the Lunatic (New York,
1963)> P* 8 7. Langner wrote of The Devil's Dl&clple: "The
play added to our luster," p. 87* An obituary tribute to
54
55
theatre, prestige meant more financial support for the
cultural theatre which it was supposed to represent. Thus,
the return on the Shaw plays cannot be measured in terms of
box-office statistics alone, and Langner's statement that
2
the Guild lost heavily on Shaw has to be interpreted. The
truth was that the Guild used Shaw's name to gain support
from the entire culture-conscious community.
The Guild started out with high ideas and an explicit
program for elevating the cultural level of society through
the presentation of superior drama. The primary purpose
was not commercial, but the Guild was composed of many
businessmen who felt that the operation should be run in a
businesslike way, and that if it could not show a profit,
at least it should not run in the red. As the Guild grew,
a tension came to exist between its initial idealism and a
compulsion to make a profit. A deeper lack was noted by
Srnold Daly in The New York Times said that "whenever the
Theatre Guild gets into trouble with the public it puts on
Shaw and thrives." "Arnold Daly as Pioneer of His Plays,"
January 15, 1927> P* 1^-
p
"We lost $20,000 on Back to Methuselah,1 1 Langner,
p. 51-
“ 3
JThe program was set forth in a book by Walter Prit
chard Eaton. The Theatre Guild: The First Ten Years (New
York, 1929), PP- 20-21.
56
Harold Clurman, who believed that the Guild lacked a strong
artistic sense of what it was doing; that is, it did not
understand the very art it proposed to support. As Mr.
Clurman put it,
The Guild . . . didn't want to say anything through plays,
and plays said nothing to them, except that they were
amusing in a graceful way, or, if they were tragic plays,
that they were "art." And art was a good thing. The
board members were in favor of culture. As a result they
chose plays of the most conflicting tendencies, and pro
duced them with all the same generalized Broadway tech
nique. . . . Most of O'Neill and Shaw became chiefly
decorative and fake-impressive.^
Such a mindless philosophy of production would be fatal to
Shavian drama because Shaw meant his plays to be vital and
significant and not "chiefly decorative." Thus, though no
critic said so explicitly, it is questionable whether the
Guild's productions properly represented Shaw. Moreover,
the failure of some critics and audiences to understand
Shaw may be partially attributed to the limitations of the
Guild.
The plays produced during the nineteen twenties will
be considered chronologically, and for this chapter as well
as the next two, all of the criticism relevant to a
4
The Fervent Years: The Story of the Group Theatre
and the Thirties (New York, 1945)* P* 24.
57
production, newspapers, journals, and books will be examined
in sequence. It was important for the Mansfield and Daly
eras to distinguish the voices of the various newspapers
because each had a personality that qualified its reception
of the drama. But in these later decades, though the Times
was the most venerable newspaper, the quality of drama crit
icism was comparable. Moreover, by keeping together all of
the criticism related to a play, it is possible to get an
overview of its general reception in all media.
Heartbreak House, produced November 10, 1920, ran for
125 performances and cemented the Shaw-Theatre Guild part
e m
nership that lasted thirty years. Obviously the Guild
was happy with its return in money and prestige for its
investment. Yet, paradoxically, almost all of the criti
cism written at the time of the Heartbreak House production
is negative. The critics were unimpressed and bored by
the play.
Alexander Woollcott, writing for the Times, began the
reviews promisingly enough by noticing that:
With the first production on any stage of the new Shaw
play called Heartbreak House the Theatre Guild recorded
. . . its most ambitious effort and . . . its most credit
able achievement.
^Salem, p. 29-
58
And Woollcott concluded that the play was "quite the larki-
est and most amusing one that Shaw has written in many a
£
year. It is noticeable here that the Guild received more
credit for doing the play than Shaw received for writing it
and that the review is characterized by restraint and lack
of enthusiasm.
Alan Dale in The New York American was more definite:
The acted play was not nearly as tedious as the published
one. That was quite hopeless. Heartbreak House had
features, each independent of the other. It was like
seeing trained seals, bareback riders, sentimental bal-
ladists, clowns and educated cockatoos. . . . The curtain
rose and fell when it felt like rising and falling. . . .
Heartbreak House had ten characters all precisely alike.
Each said "witty" things, and said them without rhyme or
7
reason.'
This critic accused the audience of laughing "at every
thing indiscriminately Just because it was Shaw" (p. 11).
In The New York Tribune Heywood Broun declared Heartbreak
House "a piece of sporadic brilliance with tedious inter
ludes. [It] . . . actually is long winded. ... We like
^"The New Shaw Play," November 11, 1920, p. 11.
^"Shaw's Latest Play Has N. Y. Premiere," November 11,
1920, p. 11.
59
the needle but could dispense with the haystack. After
a few days' thought Broun reiterated his condemnation:
The only difficulty lies in limiting the symbolism of
Shaw. It is obvious, of course, that he had the war in
mind, but it is far from easy to frame any coherent and
straightforward point of view in regard to it as ex
pressed in Heartbreak House. We rather suspect that
Shaw's mind was not altogether clear. . . . The play,
Q
therefore, must be ranked far below Shaw's best.
The response in the journals was quite similar to that
of the newspapers. 0. W. Firkins noted that "the intentions
are good, but, unless one were prompted one would never
pick out the characters of Heartbreak House as victims of
lassitude and satiation."10 Charles Henry Meltzer felt
that Heartbreak House
is amazingly ill-planned, ill-made and dull. ... If
tedious, babbly, vain, dragged out discussion make a play,
G. B. Shaw may be taken seriously. But if a play implies
O
"New Shaw Play Says Much, But Takes Its Time," Novem
ber 11, 1920, p. 10.
^"As We Were Saying," The New York Tribune, November
14, 1920, Section III, p. 1.
10"Heartbreak House," The Weekly Review, III (December
1, 1920), 540.
60
a plot and characters informed with life, what standing
has he?11
The critic for Outlook was aware that the play was a popu
lar success: "For two months a play of this type [Heart
break House] has been drawing full houses at the Garrick
12
Theatre in New York City." However, this writer refused
to take the play seriously because it was just good talk:
The bulk of the audience of Heartbreak House is made up
of people who prefer good talk, if it really is good
talk, to all the pep, zip, and punch of the latest
melodrama, (p. 131)
Thus, though the play was a box-office success, the
critics were unimpressed by its theme, bored with its
length and scandalized by its lack of structure. It seemed
to prove to many that Shaw was not first-rate. For instance,
Professor William Lyon Phelps was led to pass over Shaw and
give the palm of greatness to J. M. Barrie as "the foremost
English writing dramatist of our time, and his plays, taken
together, make the most important contributions to the
lll!Heartbreak House," Arts and Decoration, XIV
(January 1921), 213.
12"Fireworks," CXXVII (January 26, 1921), 131.
61
English drama since Sheridan."1- ^ Heartbreak House was a
critical failure, though Shaw remained indisputably
fashionable.
Back to Methuselah (1922) was not liked any more than
14
Heartbreak House. But the Biblical play immensely im
pressed the critics and the public. They were awed by its
magnitude and scope of thought. They were impressed with
the Theatre Guild's fortitude and their own endurance, but
in the final judgment, they were bored with the play and
irritated by what they felt was excessive garrulity. The
general reaction was negative. They liked and respected
Shaw; they disliked Methuselah. Alexander Woollcott's
response was typical: "It was worth doing and it is worth
seeing, but some of it is poor stuff. Better fifty minutes
of Candida than a cycle of Methuselah.1 1 ^ In The New York
American the reviewer said that the play was boring because
the
characters talked themselves deaf, dumb and blind. . . .
The curtain fell once just to show that it WAS a curtain.
^"Heartbreak House, Bernard Shaw Bewilders the
Critics," Current Opinion, LXX (February 1921), 207-
14
Back to Methuselah had 25 performances. Salem,
p. 30.
^"Methuselah Given," The New York Times, March 14,
1922, p. 11.
62
No lapse of time was indicated, and nothing was gained by
the fall of the curtain except a brief respite from the
"cackle."16
Percy Hammond in The New York Tribune sarcastically re
ferred to the characters "all sitting like mannequins on
Mr. Shaw's knee and uttering the philosophical conundrums
of that great ventriloquist."1^ But he spoke respectfully
of the Theatre Guild's accomplishment as a "miracle" (p. 6)
of production.
The magazines of the day joined in the condemnation of
1 _ fi
Shaw's long windedness. But the journals were more in
clined to consider Shaw's themes and his handling of them.
Preston Slosson noted the religiosity of the drama when he
said that Shaw "has felt religion 'coming on' for some
19
time. * Another writer thought that
l6Alan Dale, "Shaw Cycle in Its Third Week at the
Garrick," March 14, 1922, p. 8.
^"The Theatre Guild in an Admirable Production,"
February 28, 1922, p. 6.
1®Stark Young, "Back to Methuselah," New Republic,XXX
(March 15, 1922), 80.
■^"The Conversion of Bernard Shaw," Independent, CVI
(July 23, 1921), 24. See also "Back to Methuselah; Bernard
Shaw's New Gospel," Current Opinion, LXXI (July 1921),
71-73.
63
The performance emphasized his failure as a prophet and
a dramaturge . . . [because] our patience wore out and
20
our boredom intensified.
Of course there were those who defended Shaw. Ludwig
Lewisohn did not join in the complaints of boredom.
The audience sat through two hours of sheer conversation
and learned, by an intense experience, to recognize what
21
the essence of the art of the drama really is.
Another critic, Jack Crawford, hailed the play as "a great
achievement," but he admitted that there were "some dull
spots.1,22
Thus, the reception of Back to Methuselah was mixed
at best.2^ The critics respected it as a literary experi
ment of heroic proportions. But they felt that it was a
2^"Back to Methuselah," Independent, CVIII (March 25*
1922), 310.
2]~"Back to Methuselah," Nation, CXIV (March 15, 1922),
323-
op
"Broadway Goes Back to Shaw," Drama, XII (April
1922), 233-
2^
For a pot-pourri of favorable and unfavorable com
ment see "Back to Methuselah," The Literary Digest, LXXIII
(April 1, 1922), 30-31.
64
failure as a play because it was too long, inept in thematic
handling, weak in characterization, excessively talky, and
generally boring.
When The Devil's Disciple was produced, April 23, 1923*
John Corbin wrote two long reviews in the Times in which,
at great length for newspaper reviews, he tried to give a
valid assessment of the play. Corbin reported that
the play is still fresher and more amusing than more of
the products of yesterday. Thanks to an admirable per
formance by the Theatre Guild, it scored one of the few
great comedy hits of the season and seems likely to run
24
merrily through the Summer.
He felt that "the primary fact with regard to Shaw is that
he is a farce comedian."2^ Corbin praised Shaw:
When he rises, above the primary plane he has many of the
rarest qualities of the writer of high comedy. The
critics who once denounced him as a mere exploiter of
personal notions used to say that he lacked precise
observation, the faculty of feeling and recording the
infinitely varied phases of human nature. Again the
stupidity of a half truth, grossly exaggerated. Even in
oh
"The Devilfs Disciple at the Garrick Theater,"
April 24, 19233 p. 24. It did have a good run of 64 per
formances. Salem, p. 30.
2^"Diabolian Melodrama," May 6, 1923, Section VII,
p. 1.
65
this early play there are half a dozen characters closely
observed and [as] soundly felt as any in the modern
drama, (p. 1)
But Corbin, condemned:
The ultimate effect, which is of highly artistic frag
ments rattling about rather disconsolately in a medium
of willful farce and misconceived melodrama, (p. l)
Corbin’s dispraise was strong enough to cancel his praise,
and in all of this it is clear that while Corbin enjoyed
Shavian drama, and respected the playwright's ability, he
was still not certain of Shaw's status as an artist.
Percy Hammond wrote two favorable reviews in the
Tribune. He had fun at the play and felt that the audience
did too: "We were delighted. . . . The melodrama is most
skillfully cast, and it was popular with last night's in-
pfi
vited audience." Alan Dale's response in the American
was a friendly review from an unfriendly critic; that is,
Dale felt that Shaw was over-rated, and wrote that The
Devil's Disciple was
Pfi
"The Devil's Disciple in an Excellent Performance
by the Theatre Guild," April 2 3, 1923# P* 8. He wrote a
follow-up review on April 29# Section V, p. 1# entitled
"The Devil's Disciple, as the Punsters Have It, in Diabo-
lognia," in which he merely repeated his approval.
66
Shaw before he grew fond of himself. It is very ordinary
melodrama, but is so delightfully written; it is very
popularly commonplace, but its characters will amuse you
immensely. All the present Shawites will dislike it,
because it goes straight to the point, instead of wander
ing around in the mists trying to find where the point
27
may be. 1
In summarizing the response to this production one can
say that the critics and the public liked the play, but
they had reservations, doubts which though similar to the
skepticism of the past were symptoms of a great deal of
resentment against Shavian drama. It would seem that
Shaw's popular acceptance was greater than his critical
acceptance. In the periodicals of the time, no notice was
taken of the production.
The reception given to an acknowledged success and old
favorite like The Devil1s Disciple shows the somewhat hesi
tant attitude toward Shaw that was in the air at the time
St. Joan was produced. They had not forgotten the boredom
of Methuselah and some were quick to condemn Saint Joan for
length, garrulity, and unorthodox structure, particularly
the Epilogue. Those who liked the play praised its inten
sity of feeling and its willingness to deal with issues of
transcendant importance. Corbin, for the Times, expressed
^" Devil's Disciple New Offering at Garrick," April 24,
1923, p. 8.
both blame and praise. He complained that "there seemed
to be many backwater eddies In which the drama, the 'chroni
cle play1 . . . was lost in the monotonously whirling
pQ
words." He then went on to praise:
But the great triumph of the play is the scene of Joan's
trial and burning. There, the finest sympathy, the
shrewdest intellectual intention, fuse with simple human
feeling to produce really great drama. . . . Yes it is a
play that gains mightily in retrospect. (p. 8)
Mr. Percy Hammond entitled his article "Another Dull Evening
with Mr. Shaw," and grumbled that the play's "chief and
fatal trouble is that it talks too much. Moreover, some of
this surplus conversation is none too good."2^ He con
cluded by saying: "I left as many others did, before the
dreamy epilogue, and so I can report only through hearsay
that it, too, is tiresome"(p. 12). Predictably, Alan Dale
of The New York American did not think much of Saint Joan:
It must be confessed that the new play, although more of
a play than the usual Shaw outbursts, was not interesting.
28"Saint Joan," December 29, 1923, P- 8.
^December 29, 1923, p. 12. His follow-up review
repeats his unfriendly judgments. "Mr. Shaw Approves of
Joan of Arc," January 6, 1924, Section VI, p. 1.
68
Others dallying with this fascinating story have made
better jobs of it.^°
Dale was annoyed with the audience for being a claque:
The Theatre Guild audience, however, was there to snicker
at Shaw as Shaw is supposed to be, and snicker they did,
though goodness knows there was faint provocation, (p. 15)
In the magazines the critical response to Saint Joan
resolved itself into a debate as to the greatness of the
play. Like the skeptical newspaper reviewers, the negative
writers doubted Saint Joan's lasting quality. Stark Young
felt that the play promised more than it achieved. He
pondered the question and denied the title of greatness to
Saint Joan because Shaw
needs to know more of what arises out of the wonder and
solitude of the soul; to know how to be less assertive
and more luminous; and finally to know better what it
•31
costs a fine spirit to be strong.
E. V. R. Wyatt in The Catholic World wrote that
In the second scene of Act III, Mr. Shaw abandons all
theatrical devices— indeed he ceases to be a dramatist
^QllSalnt Joan, Chronicle Play by Shaw, First Time
Here," December 29, 1923, p. 15*
^111 Saint Joan,1 1 The New Republic, XXXVII (January 16,
1924), 205.
69
and reverts to a pamphleteer. It is excellent reading—
If poor drama.
Finally, the high priest of popular culture, William Lyon
Phelps pronounced that
Saint Joan Is not so great as Candida, or Major Barbara,
or The Doctor's Dilemma, or Caesar and Cleopatra. But it
Is of course brilliant and challenging, and reaches a
vertiginous height In the trial scene.
In spite of the critical strictures, Saint Joan was accepted
^4
by the public, and ran for 195 performances. Moreover,
the majority of the critics who wrote for the journals were
highly impressed with Saint Joan. Gradually the opinion
came to be voiced with more certainty, that Saint Joan was
a drama of first rank. One said that "The play is worked
out with all the shrewd humor and delicate psychological
portraiture one would expect from Mr. Shaw. ^ Ludwig
Lewisohn wrote penetratingly of its theme:
3211 Saint Joan," CXIX (May 1924), 1 98.
33As I Like It Second Series. (New York, 1924), p. 182.
^4
0 Salem, p. 32.
3^ttarold K. Kellock, "Saint Joan," Freeman, VIII
(January 16, 1924), 448.
70
[The play rises] into the eternal trial and condemnation
of the eternal free and revolutionary spirit before the
judgment bar of false order, of mere righteousness, of
naked power.
And Lewisohn concluded that "the thinkers [will not quarrel
with the play] and in literature that is the judgment that
counts" (p. 97)* The critic for Drama had no doubts about
the play. "Whatever else the theatrical season of 1924
may have in store for us, it has given us a play which may
not again be equaled in this age."3^ Another partisan of
Shaw's wrote, somewhat defensively, that "the characters
of Saint Joan . . . are not mouthpieces of Shavian ideas,
but human beings realizing themselves before an audience
through the medium of dialogue.'3® C[arl] V[an] D[oren]
accepted Saint Joan as a modern classic. He gave Shaw
credit for artistic control, of dramatic action and lan
guage: "and always there is that mastery of language in
which Mr. Shaw outdoes every dramatist of his tongue since
36"Saint Joan," The Nation, CXVIII (January 23, 1924),
97-
3^Jaek Crawford, "Broadway Is Inspired," XIV (February
1924), 178.
oO
3 Burton Rascoe, "Saint Joan," Arts and Decoration, XX
February 1924), 17.
71
the seventeenth century.Heywood Broun did not like
the Epilogue: "When Shaw comes to write the epilogue, he
seems to proceed on the assumption that he is dealing with
an audience completely idiotic."^0 But Broun had a high
opinion of the play as a whole. Saint Joan "is, in our
judgment the finest play written in the English language
in our day" (p. 195)- By 1926 the opinion was generally
4l
held that Saint Joan was to be accepted as a classic.
The overwhelming response to Saint Joan, both public
and critical, was one of resounding approval and apprecia
tion. There were some dissenting voices, particularly at
first, but they were soon drowned in the chorus of approval.
In view of the obvious merit of the play it is surprising
that there was as much disapproval as the record indicates.
But perhaps in Shakespeare's day there were those who com
plained of the length and structure of Hamlet.
39"Pools of God and Doctors of the Church," Century,
CVIII (September 1924), 720. This article is signed C.V.D.
I guess the author to be Carl Van Doren.
^°Slttlng on the World (New York, 1924), p. 199*
^"Fortunes of Saint Joan," Living Age, CCCXXIX
(May 8, 1926), 335-336. In a later article, Shaw was called
a "Modern Euripides." H. E. Mierow, The Sewanee Review,
XXXVI (January 1928), 24-26.
72
The next Shavian play to be produced in the twenties
was Candida (December 12, 1924). Katharine Cornell played
the lead, as Candida charmed New Yorkers once again, and
i 42
the play ran for 143 performances. Stark Young rejoiced
in the pages of the Times;
This season has been illumined by Katharine Cornell1s
performance of one of the great roles in the modern
theatre, a role full of meaning, of spiritual tenderness,
of divine searching irony and invention. ... I could
enjoy Shaw's Candida even in a poor performance. I never
tire of observing how it is at bottom not realism at all,
4q
but poetic satire under a biting, realistic mask. J
On the occasion of the November 9, 1925 production
starring Peggy Wood, Stark Young reaffirmed his approval
of "Shaw's Sparkling Comedy of Manners and Morals."^
Aside from a tribute to Candida as a play, this constitutes
the extent of the notice that Candida received in the
45
twenties. The play had established itself in the hearts
42
Salem, p. 30.
43"Candida," April 5, 1925> Section IX, p. 1.
44.. »
Candida Here Again, The New York Times, November
io, 1925, p. 2 3.
^John Erskine, "Secret of Sane Living," Delineator,
CXI (October 1927), 38.
73
of New Yorkers, and they found It hard to believe that the
man who jarred and annoyed them with Heartbreak House, Back
to Methuselah and parts of Saint Joan was the same man who
had given them one of their favorite comedies.
Caesar and Cleopatra, starring Lionel Atwill and Helen
Hayes, April 13, 1925, was treated with deference by the
. 46
critics and the public. It ran for 48 performances. The
Guild chose Caesar and Cleopatra to open their new theatre
and permanent home, and it was not merely an opening night:
it was a social occasion, as President Coolidge pressed the
button which raised the curtain on a very formal affair.
One critic, Alan Dale, in fact complained that the produc
tion itself was pompous and therefore unShavian.
Last night, the amusing play Caesar and Cleopatra was so
pompously presented that you had visions of Shakespeare.
. . . Most of the colloquial charm of Caesar and Cleo-
patra had vanished. In its place was a deadly pomposity
47
that hurt.
Dale's review was more of an attack on the production than
dispraise of the play. Perhaps it was the inadequate pro
duction which explained Charles Belmont Davis's faint
enthusiasm:
^Salem, p. 30.
47
'"Art in Ermine and Shaw Rule Guild Theatre," The New
York American, April 14, 1925, p. 10.
74
Caesar and Cleopatra is not Shaw's worst play and cer
tainly not his best. To us it is a play of Shaw in many
moods. ... [It has] brilliant dialogue, but dialogue
that does not go anywhere. Caesar and Cleopatra is a
curiously uneven play.^®
In contrast, Stark Young was positive in his assertion
of the play's superiority.
Caesar and Cleopatra is from the standpoint of imagination
and theatrical and intellectual contrivance and invention,
the greatest of his works. . . . [Caesar] ... is the
highest poetic reach in Shaw . . . the range and the
incisiveness of the characters is overwhelming. . . .
Caesar and Cleopatra is such a play as may come to us
ZiQ
but once in four centuries. ^
Mr. Young also contributed a thorough and appreciative
analysis of Caesar and Cleopatra to the theatre section of
SO
the following Sunday edition. His estimate is all the
more noteworthy because he was not lightly given to praise
Shaw, and he was aware of Saint Joan and Candida when he
made his selection of Caesar and Cleopatra as Shaw's best.
^"President Coolidge Signals the Curtain Up," The New
York Herald Tribune, April 14, 1925> P* 14.
^"Guild Opening," The New York Times, April 14, 1925,
p. 27.
5Q"Caesar and Cleopatra," The New York Times, April 19,
1925* Section IX, p. 1.
75
Like Stark Young, Mary Cass Canfield believed that
Caesar and Cleopatra was a great play and a much better
play than the Guild production. She pointed out the weak
nesses of the latter and gave generous praise to the former.
[it ±s]a great play. A play which pricks us with a
thousand points of unexpectedness, which sets us thinking
by its unusual implications and new associations of ideas,
filling us with the fruitful reverie which can only be
induced by "that strangeness which is beauty.
Joseph Wood Krutch also praised the play and as a tribute
to Shaw wrote an extensive comparison of Caesar and Cleo-
patra with Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. Shaw's
play was held in high esteem at this time. The fact that
it was chosen as the opener for the Guild's new theatre is
an indication of the prestige of the play and its author.
It is noteworthy that some critics, particularly Stark
Young rated it above Saint Joan as Shaw's best play.
Even though the revival of Arms and the Man (September
14, 1925) ran through 180 performances, the only notices it
received were from the newspapers who greeted it with the
"Caesar and Cleopatra,1 1 The New Republic, XLII
(April 29, 1925), 263.
"Caesar and Cleopatra: Better than Shakespeare?"The
Nation, CXX (April 2 9, 1925)* 500.
76
affectionate familiarity of an old friend.The critic of
the Times showed his pleasure by saying that "in all these
five years the Guild has undertaken no better Shavian drama
54
than Arms and the Man." The Times1 critic liked the
play: "For intrinsically Arms and the Man is a rattling
good comedy.Percy Hammond also approved "the mild good
humor with which the point was made."-^ However, he noted
that "After What Price Glory?, the play seemed but a timid
attempt to ostracize war" (p. 18). In a later review Mr.
Hammond described how fashionable and intellectually
accepted Shaw had become.
Nearly everyone had a book by or about Mr. Shaw and con
sulted it eagerly from time to time. Between the acts
the grand staircases and lounging rooms of the palatial
Guild Theatre were thronged with deluxe Shavians,
^Salem, p. 30.
'^"Arms and the Man," September 15* 1925* P* 28.
[Stark Young], "Arms and the Man: Shaw and His Play
in the Light of Modern Times," October 4, 1925* Section IX*
p. 1.
^"An Affectionate Revival of Mr. Shaw's Arms and the
Man by the Theatre Guild," The New York Herald Tribune,
September 15, 1925* P- 18.
77
discussing the master as philosopher, satirist, socialist,
57
dramatist and vegetarian. '
Thus it can be seen that Arms and the Man was well received.
Perhaps it was too well received in that Shaw was now so
completely accepted that he had become part of the status
quo. A reaction was due, and it was to come in later years,
particularly the forties. But in the twenties, Shaw was
king; the run of Arms and the Man, the critical and audi
ence reception proved it.
Shaw's triumph in the 1920's continued with a "Spirited
Revival of Androcles. T h e critic of the Times noted
with approval that
During the past week three theatres simultaneously with
stood the strain of three Shavian dramas: Arms and the
Man, Candida, Androcles and the Lion, to say nothing of
Man of Destiny. ... We have no sturdier plays on the
New York stage at this moment, (p. l)
While there was little other comment in the newspapers,
Joseph Wood Krutch wrote a perceptive and somewhat polemical
exposition of the established favorite.
-^"An Interesting First Night," The New York Herald
Tribune, September 20, 1925, Section IV, p. 1.
J The New York Times, November 29, 1925, Section VIII,
p. 1.
78
Only those who, like him, find laughter no enemy of the
highest exultation can relish its peculiar flavor. . . .
To find the play merely funny is to prove oneself incap
able of even comprehending the passion of the mystic; to
find it shocking is to confess that one cannot disassoci
ate the idea of spiritual fervor from that of sanctimoni-
59
ous solemnity.
As if in answer to Krutch, an article appeared which
accused Shaw of intellectual dishonesty or as the author
put it, "inner insincerity."
In . . . [Androcles and the Lion] . . . Shaw reveals his
essential weakness, the compelling necessity under which
he labors to defend himself by ridicule from those deeper
truths and mysteries of life to which his instinct leads
him, and against which his hard old rationalism rebels
. . . he . . . ridicules Christians . . . because that is
fio
his only feeble defense against accepting Christianity.
The Theatre Guild put on Pygmalion (November 15, 1926)
with Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontaine. The New York critics
f i 1
and public were pleased, and said so. In the Times
J. Brooks Atkinson remarked:
59"a Religious Farce," The Nation, CXXI (December 9*
1925), 6 8 9.
fio
R. Dana Skinner, "Androcles and the Lion," Indepen
dent, CXVI (January 9, 1926), 48.
6l
There were 143 performances. Salem, p. 3.
79
[Pygmalion Is] nothing prodigious, of course, as things
go In the theatre; but for all that a perfect expression
of situation. Sometimes, as in Pygmalion, the pedants
may exclaim that Shaw does not write plays at all. This
62
may be true. Nevertheless, he is a dramatist.
In fact, the critic for the Times expressed concern that
Shaw's success was a sign that people were ignoring his
thought and merely enjoying his fun. Under a heading "Mr.
Shaw's Present Prestige Ill-Suited to a Rebellious Thinker,"
the critic protested that "To tie him up, like Alfred
Doolittle, and deliver him into the hands of middle-class
morality is nothing short of a catastrophe." Thus, this
writer, protested Shaw's cannonization as a "Grand old man
of literature" because the new status rendered Shaw's
64
remarks innocuous. Here again is evidence of the eminence
of Shaw in the twenties. Even Percy Hammond purred over
the play as "one of the most amusing and preposterous of
his works. In its revival at the Guild Theatre last night
^2"Mr. Shaw and the Guild," November 16, 1926, p. 24.
^"Pygmalion, the Burden of Success," November 21,
1926, Section VIII, p. 1.
64
The article is unsigned, but the style is that of
Atkinson.
80
Pygmalion proved to be an invigorating autumn sport.
The critic for the American reported that "the comedy of
Pygmalion is delicious insomuch as It is that rare comedy
which becomes laughable because of the acute relationship
it bears to real life."^
Stark Young also praised Pygmalion. "We wonder if
the dramatist . . . did not, through the genius of him,
create plays that are more human and lasting than he had
quite imagined."^ The only adverse criticism noted that
Pygmalion is Inferior as a comedy: though he wished to
write a comedy which should analyze the meaning of man
ners, he was betrayed into a farce which is often no more
than superficial extravaganza. . . . [But] even when
Homer nods he does not actually snore and Pygmalion Is
always diverting.^®
^ 1 1 Pygmalion," The New York Herald Tribune, November
16, 1926, p. 18. Hammond reiterated and amplified his re
marks in a feature for the Sunday edition of the Tribune,
"Pygmalion," November 21, 1926, Section VI, p. 1.
[Alan Dale], "Bernard Shaw's Comedy Revived by the
Theatre Guild," November 16, 1926, p. 26.
^ " Pygmalion," The New Republic, XLIX (December 1,
1 9 2 6), 41.
^^"Noddlng Homer," The Nation, CXXIII (December 1,
1926), 567.
81
To be called a Homer, even a "nodding Homer" is certainly
high praise, and another indication of Shaw's popularity
and critical prestige in the nineteen twenties.
The Guild's production of The Doctor's Dilemma (Novem
ber 21, 1927) was another stage in the Shavian triumphal
progress. That is, most of the criticism was favorable,
and it specifically granted that The Doctor's Dilemma was
good entertainment. For instance, the notice in the Herald
Tribune asserted that
There was no dating in last night's performance percep
tible to the layman. Good acting, good theatre, with
humor and a sprightly damning of the doctors is available
in Fifty-second street. What more can the drama's upper
69
classes ask? ^
But in this endorsement there was a reservation: "There
was no dating . . . perceptible to the layman." Similarly,
J. Brooks Atkinson announced that "there are many stupider
shows in town," and that the patron would get his "money's
70
worth in ideas and entertainment."' Another article in
the Times stated that "Shaw's "fame in America is so great
^Percy Hammond, "The Doctor's Dilemma," November 22,
1927* P- 20.
^"Pasting the Medicine Men," The New York Times,
November 22, 1927* P» 33*
82
that any play of his is almost guaranteed a run." ^ 1 Appar
ently these critics felt that Shaw was living on his repu
tation, at least in this play. Alan Dale in The New York
American was less reserved and temperate. He called the
72
play "an eczema of prolixity."
The critic of the Saturday Review of Literature gave
more praise to Shaw's objectivity: "In The Doctor's Dilem
ma he has kept himself so aloof . . . that it is difficult
to be sure where the preponderance of his sympathies lies.
But Stark Young, though he enjoyed the fun, had doubts
about the play as a work of art, and observed that
there is the sense of two plays, one that of the people
on the stage and their lives together, the other a cere
bral farce, high spirited, underscored, exaggerated,
running along with its gymnastics, its willful passions,
its slapping methods, with the author as its hero, clown
and dreamer. ... I console myself by remembering that
from just such combinations the characteristic quality
^ " The Doctor's Dilemma," November 20, 1927* Section
IX, p. 2. The "run" of The Doctor's Dilemma was 115 per
formances. Salem, p. 31-
^2"The Doctor's Dilemma Goes on View," November 22,
1927* p. 16.
^Oliver M. Sayler, "The Doctor's Dilemma," IV (Decem
ber 3* 1927)* 372.
83
of the play derives, and a most enjoyable quality, and
74
let it go at that.'
The only other notice the play received was a confused
75
review in Outlook, a review too garbled to cite. ^ Taken
as a whole, the reception of The Doctor's Dilemma was
conditioned by Shaw's status as a great and accepted play
wright. But there was a lack of respect for the play
itself throughout the comments, and there was an implica
tion, expressed between the lines, that if Shaw had not
been the author, the play might have been roughly handled.
Major Barbara was the last Shaw play to be produced in
y/T
the twenties (November 19, 1928).' It was greeted with
respect because it was a Shavian drama, and Shaw was very
fashionable. Moreover, the critics genuinely enjoyed
Shaw's sparkling wit and humor, but they were specific about
his defects. The critic of the Herald Tribune wrote:
Major Barbara is still a thing of the early twentieth
century, even in the hands of the Guild. It is old
^ " The Doctor's Dilemma," The New Republic, LIII
(December 14, 1927), 97.
^F. R. B., "The Doctor's Dilemma," CXLVII (December
2 8, 1927), 532.
76
' The run was 84 performances. Salem, p. 31.
84
fashioned. It is incomplete in the unity of its construc
tion. But it is good entertainment and it is not Intel-
77
lectually unstimulating.
In The New York Sun, Stephen Rathburn praised Major Barbara
as a "treat for any Intellectual theatre goer. . . . Here
is Shaw at his caustic best." Like the critic of the
Herald Tribune, J. Brooks Atkinson felt that Major Barbara
was inferior to other Shaw drama, and he explained his
position by comparing Shaw and Ibsen, saying that Shaw
relied too much on dialogue and not enough upon action to
79
make his points.'^ There was a futile attack in the Book-
8o
man which took Shaw to task for the ideas In Major Barbara.
The only other notice given the play was a review which
praised the play as superior theatre:
^Howard Barnes, "Masterful Revival of Major Barbara,
Presented by Guild," November 20, 1928, p. 2 3.
78
"Theatre Guild Makes Annual Revival of a Shaw Play,"
November 20, 1928, p. 20. A follow-up article in the Sun
also recommended the play to the public. See Richard
Lockridge, "Inside Looking Out," November 2 6, 1928, p. 3 6.
^^"Back to G.B.S.," The New York Times, December 2,
1928, Section X, p. 1.
^Charles A. Bennett, "Major Barbara," LXIII (March 26,
1928), 32-36.
85
Night after night we go to the theatre; but rarely do we
find ourselves moved by the vigor of the dialogue in a
play, the beauty of intention, or the humor of style that
is kept to a high level by demanding the highest kind of
laughter. At Major Barbara an evening is a matter of
pleasurable impression.
But he added: "This does not blind us to any of the short
comings of Major Barbara as a play. It is too talky and
the last act is weak" (p. 15^).
The important thing about this record is that it is
the record: it represents how the critics and the public
felt about Shaw. His reputation rose to great heights, but
there was no tendency to say that Shaw was faultless. The
truth was that in spite of an obviously great play like
Saint Joan, and Shaw’s high prestige, there was skepticism
about the lasting quality of the Shavian drama. As the
decade progressed, the critics expressed continual surprise
at how well the dramas held up. It was as if they expected
the Shaw fad to pass and were constantly forced to re
evaluate topical and hence transitory period pieces. The
idea of Shavian drama as essentially timeless and therefore
classical gradually began to emerge during the nineteen
twenties.
8l
Montrose J. Moses, "Major Barbara," Review of
Reviews, LXXIX (January 1929). 15^.
CHAPTER IV
SHAW'S RECEPTION IN THE 1930'S: THE PRODUCTIONS
OP THE THEATRE GUILD ET AL.
The first Shaw play to be produced in the 1930's was
The Apple Cart (February 24, 1930), which ran for eighty-
eight performances, just long enough to convince the
critics and the public that something vital was lacking in
it.^ Those who wrote about the play felt that it was
worthy of attention because it was by Shaw, but that it was
not first-rate drama. For example, Brooks Atkinson
reported that The Apple Cart was "a long play, dull in
spots, undramatic, and rather tedious." Atkinson ex
plained that "being a law unto himself, and quite properly,
Mr. Shaw does not pretend to be a play-joiner in The Apple
Cart" (p. 30).
Similarly, Arthur Ruhl in the Herald Tribune declared
The Apple Cart a non-drama:
^Salem, p. 30.
O
"The Apple Cart," The New York Times, February 25>
1930, p. 30.
86
87
Those who are looking for a play in the ordinary sense of
the word— for the swift progress of a story, for suspense,
surprise, the dynamic give and take of dialogue that
makes some active conclusion, for what is usually known
as drama, expressed in visual terms— will not find it
here.J
The critic for The New York Sun concurred with his col
leagues that The Apple Cart was lacking.
The trouble is that [Shaw's ideas] lack the brightness of
the new with which Shaw has usually been able to surface
his mental coinage.
The reservations of the newspaper critics were, for the
most part, echoed by those who wrote for the journals.
Stark Young said the The Apple Cart was not a good play,
but that it was "still Shaw."^ Richard Dana Skinner tried
to account for the lack in the play:
The main trouble lies in the lack of dramatic substance.
It is as if the Shaw who took such pains to support the
^"Shaw's Apple Cart Presented by the Theatre Guild at
the Martin Beck," February 25, 1930, p. 14.
^Richard Lockridge, "Bernard Shaw's Latest Play Is
Presented at the Martin Beck," February 25, 1930, p. 20.
5"The Apple Cart," The New Republic, LXII (March 12,
1930), 99-
88
satire of Arms and the Man with drama had suddenly grown
weary of pretenses and decided to speak his mind freely,
regardless of theatre.^
The critic for The Nation said he liked it.
I must confess that it held me delighted to the end. . . .
I was charmed by something which must be pure art of some
kind, for I applauded, not anything which was said, but
the suppleness and dexterity of the man who said it.^
But the majority opinion of the critics was in the vein of
Montrose J. Moses, who wrote that: “The Apple Cart is not
in any conventional sense a play. It is a discourse on
O
many things and nothing in particular. 1 1
Thus the thirties began inauspiciously for Shaw, for
he was found wanting as a dramatist. As usual, the Guild
emerged, reputation unspotted as the champion of culture
and dramatic art.
The 1931 production of Getting Married did nothing to
advance Shaw's reputation, for the play was considered
"The Apple Cart,1 * Commonweal, (XI (March 12, 1930),
535-
^"The Impenitent Shaw," CXXX (March 19, 1930), 3 3 8.
®"The Court Jester's Apple Cart," Review of Reviews,
LXXXI (April 1930), 144. Others who thought this way were:
E. V. R. Wyatt, "The Apple Cart," The Catholic World, CXXXI
(April 1930), 78-79; "The Apple Cart," Theatre Arts Maga
zine, XIV (May 1930), 370.
89
Q
little more than staged conversation. As Brooks Atkinson
put it, "Getting Married is a conversation, topsy-turvy in
its dramatic premises, bubbling from Mr. Shaw's pernicious
sanity— yet twice too long."^ In the Herald Tribune Percy
Hammond grumbled that Getting Married was "an evening of
inspection rather than entertainment. This is one of the
Shaw tracts, of which it is said that the preface, not the
play's the thing.The critic for the Sun was kinder,
though no less explicit about the amount of talk:
This comedy belongs to . . . Shaw's middle period in
which he was vastly more interested in ideas than in
action, and he cared not a whit how much conversation
12
was necessary to put across his many-faceted discussion.
Edmund Wilson in The New Republic said that it was a
poor production of a poor drama, but that
You recognize him even in these less lively plays
as the great artist he is, with all the "combination
^There were 48 performances. Salem, p. 31.
•^"Getting Married," The New York Times, March 31,
1931, p. 25.
^"Mr. Shaw's Ancient Discussion About How to Be
Married Though Happy," March 31, 1931, P* 22.
12
Stephen Rathburn, "Guild Makes Shaw Revival," March
31, 1931.
90
of inevitableness and surprise" which is characteristic
1-3
of the great composers. J
Similarly gracious was Mark Van Doren who did not condemn
the play as drama; instead, he expressed appreciation for
Shaw's method:
It is talk that Shaw as an artist is concerned with; he
has rarely done anything else in a play than assemble a
14
number of persons who know how to talk well.
The other critics, like Richard D. Skinner, were caustic
about Getting Married: "The Guild is struggling against
heavy odds in trying to make a play out of half-baked con
versation. The condemnation seemed to reach a crescendo
• j
in Barrett H. Clark. This writer announced that he had
been right about Shaw "all along" because "Shaw's plays are
13"Gettlng Married," LXVI (April 15, 1931), 2 3 6.
1^"The Changing Shaw," The Nation, CXXXII (April 15,
1931), 431.
•*•5"Getting Married and Shaw," Commonweal, XIII (April
15, 1931), 666. See also Elizabeth G. Jordan, "Getting
Married," America, XLV (April 23, 1931), 68, and "Getting
Married," The Catholic World, CXXXIII (May 1931), 207-
lfi
Clark wrote a number of studies of the drama: The
British and American Drama of Today (New York, 1 9 1 5).
European Theories of the Drama, 1915*
91
exceedingly dull" (p. 1 0), and because he "is a real play
wright only occasionally and by accident," and Barrett con
cluded triumphantly: "it is my belief that in a compara
tively short time the plays of Bernard Shaw will be dead
issues in our theatre."^ Thus, even though there were
those who remembered Shaw's better things, the general
critical verdict was to condemn Getting Married as second-
rate Shavian drama.
Too True to Be Good (April 4, 1932), was attacked by
the critics for disunity and excessive talk; however, if
the talk had been brilliant, the critics might yet have
been favorable, but the glitter and gaiety was gone, and
18
the critics pronounced the play boring. Many commented
on the pessimism in Too True To Be Good and noted that the
work was an expression of despair. For this reason, many
critics found the last speech by Aubrey profoundly moving,
and though they condemned the play, they were intrigued and
stimulated by it. In sum, the criticism was a paradoxical
mixture of rejection and acceptance, boredom and fascination.
Brooks Atkinson declared that Too True To Be Good was
an inchoate discursive play . . . [whose] random state
ments on politics, medicine . . . arrive at no conclusions
^"Getting Married," Drama, XXI (May 1931)# 10.
18
There were 57 performances. Salem, p. 32.
92
and, despite the acting, are largely lost in the
IQ
theatre. ^
The critic of the Herald Tribune found inferior
Shavian drama better than no Shaw:
The impression that Mr. Shaw’s Too True To Be Good is a
chatty cadaver, again expounding the sage's patriarchal
doctrines, need not deter you from attendance. . . .
There is life in the old wizard yet, and though stale
20
and sometimes flat, he is seldom unprofitable.
Richard Lockridge in The New York Sun expressed much the
same idea as Hammond:
The theme of the play is merely the sum total of Shaw's
beliefs on various subjects. These beliefs are expressed
with almost the old vigor— almost. .. . Sharp prodding
21
for sleepy minds is promised at the Guild.
Of course, many of the magazine critics repeated these
judgments of the daily reviews. For example, Stark Young
^ " Too True To Be Good," The New York Times, April
1932, p. 2 7. Atkinson reiterated his position in the fol
lowing Sunday edition, "Too True To Be Good," April 10,
1932, Section VIII, p. 1.
20Percy Hammond, "Too True To Be Good," April 5> 1932,
p. 14.
21,1 Too True To Be Good," April 5, 1932.
93
22
said that Shaw was "like Jeremiah on a trapeze." But the
more thoughtful writers were impressed with what Joseph
Wood Krutch called "the drama of Bernard Shaw.I|23 Krutch
said that
No previous Shaw play is in general so poor, and yet in
a very special sense, nothing he ever wrote before is so
impressive as this [because, as Krutch makes Shaw say:J
"My answers were only a little less inadequate than those
of others. You have failed, I have failed, all of us
have failed. Mankind is damned." (pp. 477-478)
Francis Fergusson also commented on the same idea:
But this play has a new depth, which comes from the fact
that Shaw no longer believes himself: he seems to be
24
folding up his box of tricks, putting away his toys.
22"Little Flowers," The New Republic, LXX (April 20,
1932), 2 7 3. Of like mind were: Richard Dana Skinner, "Too
True To Be Good," Commonweal, XV (April 20, 1932), 691;
Elizabeth G. Jordan, "Too True To Be Good," America, XLVII
(April 30, 1932), 94.
23"Alas Poor Yorick," The Nation, CXXXIV (April 20,
1932), 478.
oil
"Too True To Be Good," Bookman, LXXV (April 1932),
75-
Shaw’s expression of despair, therefore, did not escape the
2<5
critics. They were tremendously impressed by the spirit
ual evolution that they witnessed, but they were unable to
praise Too True To Be Good as drama.
Every Shaw play so far produced had both favorable and
unfavorable reviews. Therefore it is remarkable that The
Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (February 18, 1935) had
pfi
unfavorable criticism only. Brooks Atkinson said that
it was "unconscionably boring . . . labored, loquacious and
soporific."2^ The play was reviewed in the Herald Tribune
28
as Shaw’s "new lecture." He later described it as a "talk
ing carcass, shining only in the evidence of brilliant
2-^Others who remarked on "the drama of Shaw," were:
E. V. R. Wyatt, "Too True To Be Good," Catholic World,
CXXXV (May 1932), 206-207; John Hutchins, "End of a Season,"
Theatre Arts Magazine, XVI (June 1932), 437-439; Alistair
Cooke, "Too True To Be Good," Theatre Arts Magazine, XVI
(November 1932), 8 7 7-8 7 8.
Salem notes 40 performances, p. 32.
2^"The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles," The New
York Times, February 19* 1935# P* 2 7.
pQ
Percy Hammond, "The Simpleton of the Unexpected
Isles, February 19, 1935, Section V, p. 16.
95
decay."2^ Richard Lockridge said that the audience was
"palpably puzzled" and that the play was obscure and little
more than "a rustling of words in the wind."3°
The journals were as harsh as the newspapers: The
Literary Digest called The Simpleton "a torpid restatement
of all his familiar prides and prejudices."-^1 Stark Young
asserted that "the banality of the dramatist's preachments
is all too plain."^2 The critic for Nation took note of
Shaw's pessimism and said that Shaw
now writes for the sake of writing, to please himself.
... I do not believe that the play has any consistent
thesis or any coherent body of ideas ... it is
vaudeville. ^
2Q
^This was in Percy Hammond's follow-up article in the
Sunday edition of the Herald Tribune, "Mr. Shaw's Latest
Bout With Worldly Civilization," February 24, 1935* Section
V, p. 2.
3°"Shaw's The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles Has
World Premiere at the Guild," The New York Sun, February 19,
1935* P. 19-
31"The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles," CXIX (March
2, 1935)* 23.
32»The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles," The New
Republic, LXXXII (March 6, 1935)* 105-
33secause of the similarity of language, idea and
source, I believe this unsigned article is by Joseph Wood
Krutch. "The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles," CXL
(March 6, 1935)* 2 8 7.
This was a surprising statement to make about a dramatist
who had so often been called didactic, and whose drama had
been considered intellectual. Another critic, Grenville
Vernon, went further and said that "G. B. Shaw has fallen
o2i
into the sere and yellow leaf.' And Edith J. R. Issacs
regarded the play simply as a bad Joke: "If poking fun at
a badly managed world seems too cosmic a range for a dram
atic joke to take, you will hardly enjoy it."^ In sum,
The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles was unfavorably
received by the critics, who attacked Shaw for wanton dis
regard of the rules of the drama. That is, they blamed
Shaw’s failure on willfulness rather than artistic inability
and strangely, no one attributed the weakness of The Sim
pleton to senility or the debility of age. The intellec
tual bankruptcy and pessimism of the play the critics
noted, but did not discuss at any length.
In March 1936, Katharine Cornell successfully revived
Saint Joan. The production was a personal triumph for
Miss Cornell who captivated the critics. The production
■^"The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles," Commonweal,
XXI (March 8, 1935), 542.
35"The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles," Theatre
Arts Monthly, XIX (April 1935), 244.
•^Eighty-nine performances. Salem, p. 32.
97
was also a triumph and vindication of Shaw as a dramatist,
for he had had little success in New York for some years,
so that Saint Joan represented a comeback. Most of the
reviews conveyed a genuine sense of appreciation for the
opportunity to reevaluate Saint Joan. The critics generally
agreed that it was Shaw's best play because it had moral
insight, it asked universal questions, and it contained the
powerful trial scene. However, they found it hard to
accept the Epilogue because they felt that it deprived the
play of tragic grandeur.
Brooks Atkinson noted that Saint Joan had
been increasing in popular stature ever since it was first
acted a dozen years ago . . . [and that] ... if Saint
Joan offered nothing except the solemn trial scene and
the compassionate wisdom of the inquisitor's speech it
would still rank with the best in the modern theatre.
However, Atkinson objected to the style and epilogue:
There are scenes no more than competent, and in this
reviewer's opinion the manner and verbosity of the epi
logue snatch a fine play back into theatre tedium . . .
the perfunctory putting together of words robs the epi
logue of dramatic significance, (p. 27)
The reaction of Richard Lockridge was similar to that of
Atkinson, for Lockridge praised the play only in part. He
37"Katharine Cornell's Saint Joan,1 1 The New York Times,
March 10, 1936, p. 27.
liked the high scenes with Saint Joan, but he was doubtful
about the rest, and of the play as a unit.
Something has served to break the play into a series of
spurts. Except when she is on the stage, it is a trifle
wan and wordy, and rather too much given to lengthy
speeches, not all of which are in Shaw's best vein.^®
The usually acidulous Percy Hammond was mellow in his
remarks about this production. * He called Saint Joan
"the most dignified of Shaw's . . . sagacious pranks," and
he felt that the play was "a chronicle, an investigation,
a criticism, a drama and a show."^0
Newsweek reported that Katharine Cornell in Saint Joan
had a "great and brilliant success, but it took a
superior critic like Stark Young to distinguish the weak
and the strong points:
"Miss Cornell Returns in a Revival of Shaw's Saint
Joan at the Martin Beck," The New York Sun, March 10, 1936,
p. 1 6.
3^See his comments on the 1924 production on Chapter
III, page
^°"Miss Cornell in Her Role of Orleans Maid," The New
York Herald Tribune, March 15, 1936, Section V, p. 1.
^"Artistic Triumph," VII (March 21, 1936), 22.
99
The defects in this play lie in garrulity and confused
detail, in the trivial relief effects, in too much per
sonal assertion on the author's part, and in a stupid
42
and obvious epilogue.
But he felt that
The great thing about Saint Joan is its movement toward
the conception that finally flames in the trial scene.
. . . The body of the play is for this scene . . .
lifted to the plane of greatness. (p. 198)
The critic for Nation took the occasion of the production
to pronounce Saint Joan Shaw's
greatest because he does not destroy the humanity of his
characters through overintellectualization, [and because]
. . . Saint Joan remains the best dramatic presentation of
in
this particular conflict that has ever been written. J
44
The play was reviewed favorably in Commonweal and in The
4c
Catholic World; J and though one reviewer for Theatre Arts
iip
The McClintic's Shaw," The New Republic, LXXXVI
(March 25, 1936), 198.
^"Shaw's Classic," Nation, CXLII (March 25, 1936), 392.
44
Grenville Vernon, "Saint Joan," XXIII (March 27,
1936), 609.
^Euphemia V. R. Wyatt, "Saint Joan," CXIII (April
1 9 3 6), 8 5-8 6.
100
Monthly complained that the play raised "a question of how
long a play should humanely run, the rest of the critics
had only good things to say. John Mason Brown, for exam
ple, wrote that it was "a masterpiece that has moral
2 t7
grandeur."
In the second Broadway production of Saint Joan the
critics were more inclined to accept the play as a modern
classic. Though they still had reservations which they did
not hesitate to express, it was difficult to quarrel with
success, and the play was indeed a triumph for the actors
and the playwright.
Since Katharine Cornell had triumphed in Saint Joan,
and had already successfully staged Candida in 1924, it
was only natural that she should produce Candida again.
Her 1937 production had only fifty performances, in con-
i i f t
trast with the 143 of 1924. However, the critics
accorded the play a friendly welcome. Brooks Atkinson said:
hfZ
Saint Joan: Portfolio of Scenes from Cornell*s
Production," XX (May 1936), 329«
^ " Saint Joan," Theatre Arts Monthly, XX (June 1936),
464. Edith J. R. Isaacs also praised the play in "Saints
and Law Makers," Theatre Arts Monthly, XX (May 1936),
333-338.
48
Salem, p. 30.
101
It is a little masterpiece of human serenity. "Wise,"
"merciful," "modest" . . . one of the most winning por
traits of a woman in the English drama. Love without
mind is chaos; mind without love is death. In Candida
love and mind are completely united, and Shaw is at his
best. ^
Richard Watts, Jr., also used the word"wise" as he called
Candida "one of the wisest and finest of all modern come
dies."^0 He concluded his article by asserting that the
play was "a true modern masterpiece" (p. 14). From Richard
Lockridge came cheers:
She [Katharine Cornell] gave the theatre something to
cheer about. . . . You will not see better playing any-
51
where in town, or a more stimulating play1 .
The only dissenting voices were those of the critic for
Newsweek and Stark Young. The critic for Newsweek dis
missed Candida as "high-powered hokum" because Shaw "has
^ " Candida," The New York Times, March 21, 1937*
Section XI, p. 1.
"Candida," The New York Tribune, March 11, 1937*
p. 14.
"Katharine Cornell Revives Candida," The New York
Sun, March 11, 1937* P* 20.
102
forgotten ... to make the characters talk like human
beings."-*2 And Stark Young complained that
We often sense thoughts, theories, motives assigned by
the author to the characters which are not wholly neces
sary to them in the light of what each is and does.-*3
Young's reservations were a change from his reception of
Cornell's 1924 production. At that time he found no fault
with the play.
The rest of the commentary on this production was
favorable. One article stated simply that "Mr. Shaw is
Superb.Joseph Wood Krutch felt that Cornell's version
of Candida proved the durability of Shavian drama.
The production in which Miss Cornell is appearing serves
very well to establish another fact which is becoming
increasingly clear as Shaw is put to the test of time.
All the better pieces remain too obviously actable to
be dismissed as mere pamphlets. . . . There is something
55
else in them. ^
52"Candida," IX (March 20, 1937), 22.
53"Candida," The New Republic, XC (April 21, 1937),
322.
^"Katharine Cornell: Superb Candida," The Literary
Digest, CXXIII (March 20, 1937), 28.
^ " Candida," Nation, CXLIV (March 27, 1937), 361.
103
In the same vein the critic cf Theatre Arts Monthly de
clared Candida "as fresh and as relevant to our day as
most of the timely plays we see— and much more full of
delight."^ E. V. R. Wyatt called Candida "a brilliant
and amusing comedy."^7 Thus, history repeated Itself:
New Yorkers and the critics in general found Candida
irresistible. The production did not have a comparatively
long run, but those were lean days in the economy and in
view of the conditions the play did well.
On January 25, 1938 there was a two-performance produo*
tion of Pygmalion by the Federal Theatre Project players.
The notice in the Times advised its readers of the bargain
and "successful production of Pygmalion at 55^*"'^ The
critic for the Sun, unmindful of the 55^ admission price,
ungraciously remarked that "there were times last night
6o
when the performance lacked . . . general smoothness."
56"Candida," XXI (May 1937), 3^4.
57"Candida," The Catholic World, CXLV (May 1937), 213.
•^Salem, p. 32.
^ " Pygmalion," January 27, 1938, p. 16.
6 O
Herrick Brown, "Shaw's Pygmalion," The New York Sun,
January 27, 1938, p. 12.
104
The only other writer to comment on the production said
that Pygmalion was "the most satisfying performance of a
play that the Federal Theatre Project has given In New York
this season."^*
Orson Welles produced Heartbreak House on April 29,
1938, and while the play fared a little better than It had
In 1920, It ran for only forty-eight performances which
was a sign of the impoverished times, and the run should
not be unfavorably compared to the Guild's 125 perform-
ances. Brooks Atkinson praised Shaw's wit, wisdom, and
brilliance, but he protested the playwright's garrulity.
"It is a play of clown and prophet, full of caustic insight
— but, 0 Lord, how long .'"^3
Unique among the critics was Richard Watt, Jr., who
not only differed from his colleagues, but also questioned
the validity of the past evaluation of the play:
It seems to have been the general impression when Shaw's
Heartbreak House was first produced here late in 1920
that the play was, as Heywood Broun put it In his Tribune
fil
Grenville Vernon, "Pygmalion," Commonweal, XXVII
(February 2 5, 1938), 496.
62Salem, p. 3 1.
^3"Heartbreak House," The New York Times, April 30,
1938, p. 18.
105
review, "a piece of sporadic brilliance with tedious
Interludes." With the passing of years, however, the
work has come to be more admired, and now it is usually
conceded that it stands among the great man's master
pieces. ... In fact, it is my guess that Mr. Broun,
too, would change his verdict a bit today.
Mr. Watts granted that the play had flaws, but he contended
that there were virtues which more than compensated. The
virtues he specified were vitality and an "enormous
strength and intellectual forcefulness" (p. 30).
The rest of the criticism repeated the unfavorable
judgments of the nineteen-twenties. For instance, Gren
ville Vernon said that "Heartbreak House is a baffling and
/T c
annoying play." Joseph Wood Krutch condemned it too
because "a pot-pourri of ideas is not the same thing as a
f i f i
synthesis of moods." E. V. R. Wyatt felt that Heartbreak
House was "a brilliant symposium interlarded with slap
stick," and "an example of Shaw's failure to use discipline
"Heartbreak House," The New York Herald Tribune,
April 30, 1938, p. 30.
^ " Heartbreak House," Commonweal, XXVIII (May 13,
1938), 77.
66"Heartbreak House," Nation, CXLVI (May 14, 1938),
566.
106
and the shears."^ The critic for The New Republic de-
68
clared the play to be "garrulous, unfelt and tiresome."
The critics did not approve of Heartbreak House because it
did not seem to go anywhere. They recognized that Shaw
was working in the Chekov mode, but, for the most part,
they felt that Heartbreak House was an inept imitation and
not first-class drama.
On the Rocks was given its American Premiere by the
Federal Theatre on June 15, 1938* and it ran for sixty-six
6q
performances. J It was received like a walrus in the back
yard swimming pool. That is, the critics had little en
thusiasm for it, but they could not ignore it. The notices
are a mixture of fascination for the strange monster, and
rejection of the work as drama. Brooks Atkinson wrote:
By expecting to be bored by Mr. Shaw's newest play you
are likely to find yourself continuously stimulated.
[But] . . . like all the recent Shaw plays, On the Rocks
^ " Heartbreak House," The Catholic World, CXLVII (June
1938), 344.
68
The style suggests Stark Young. "On Revisiting Heart
break House," XCV (June 8, 1938), 130.
6q
^Salem, p. 31.
107
is a collection of patches. Nothing marches toward a
70
good, roaring conclusion.
In the Herald Tribune, Howard Barnes described it
as intriguing a commentary as it is a bad play. Writing
in his most satirical vein, the venerable dramatist has
paid almost no attention to the most accepted conventions
of the theater. His stage editorial . . . has no action,
no suspense and none of the moving quality which one has
the right to expect from a stage illusion. Nevertheless
. . . you are apt to find it difficult to tear yourself
71
away before the last period has been put.
In the Sun, Richard Lockridge made it clear he did not like
On the Rocks:
There is no particular use in complaining that Shaw is
as wordy as ever in this, one of the least of his plays.
He has always been wordy, but his words have been
72
sharp.'
^ " On the Rocks Acted by Federal Theatre Co.," The
New York Times, June 16, 1938* P* 20.
^ " On the Rocks," June 16, 1938, p. 15.
"Shaw’s On the Rocks Has Its First American Show
ing," June 16, 1938, p. 15*
The critic for Time reported that
108
audiences have been treated to a symposium so full of
sparkling perfectionist common sense that they may well
forget that they have seen nothing closer to physical
action than a . . . threat to break a window.'J
Commonweal's Grenville Vernon wrote that On the Rocks was
without form, or characterization, and that "the meaning
'jll
of the play is difficult to discover."
The critics were pleased with the intellectual stimu
lus of the play, but Otis Ferguson seemed to voice the
general opinion when he charged that On the Rocks
breaks down as a play. There is talk and there is talk.
... We have been sold shoddy theatre and have somehow
75
been made to like it. ^
The charges which the critics leveled against On the Rocks
were not new. They were the same ones that critics had
been making against Shavian drama from the beginning. The
curious thing is that the more modern writers were just
"On the Rocks Produced by the Federal Theatre," XXXI
(June 27, 1938), 33*
74"0n the Rocks," XXVIII (July 1, 1938), 273-
^ " On the Rocks," The New Republic, XCV (July 6, 1938),
251.
109
as Shockable, and just as intolerant, as their late Vic
torian predecessors, if not more so. On the Rocks was not
a critical success, and it has not been staged on Broadway
since this one production.
Under the auspices of the Federal Theatre Androcles
and the Lion with an all-Negro cast was produced on Decem
ber 16, 1938, and it was a rollicking good show, as the
critics and public testified, for it ran for 104 perform-
76
ances and received favorable, though not extensive reviews.
Brooks Atkinson pronounced the production "superior to the
Theatre Guild's of 1 9 2 5."^ He did not take the play
seriously because, as he wrote, "Androcles is easier to
enjoy if the mind does not hunt too furiously for the
intellectual significance of Shaw's symbols" (p. 10).
Similarly, Richard Watts, Jr. felt that Androcles and the
Lion was "pleasant fun," and a "kindly frolic."7® Time
magazine's critic agreed that Shaw's play was not to be
taken seriously:
7^Salem, p. 30.
"The Harlem Unit of the Federal Theatre," The New
York Times, December 17, 1938, p. 10.
7®"Shaw and the Lion," The New York Herald Tribune,
December 17» 1938, p. 8.
110
Androcles falls to transmit a serious social message,
for the good reason that it is not a serious play. . . •
Such high jinks do not make wonder what Shaw means by
it at all; they make one wonder whether he may not have
70
had a hand in Hellzapoppln. ^
The general impression of all of the critics was that
the Harlem production was "a remarkable success and repre
sented one of the best productions this play has ever
80
received." However, unlike many of the earlier critics,
they did not see an insidious attack on Christianity and
morals in the play. They considered it delightful enter
tainment and good drama.
Shaw's drama was put to the test of time in the
thirties, and with few exceptions, it passed with flying
colors. The older plays like Saint Joan, Candida, Pygma
lion and Androcles and the Lion were received as loved and
respected modern classics of the drama. Even Heartbreak
House began to win more critical approval and general under
standing. It is true that Shaw's later plays such as The
Apple Cart, Too True To Be Good, The Simpleton of the Unex
pected Isles, and On the Rocks were not as successful
^ " Androcles and the Lion,1 1 XXXII (December 26, 1938) >
25-
80
V. P. Calverton, "Cultural Barometer," Current
History, XLIX (February 1939)* ^7•
either with the critics or with the public as his older
plays. Everyone expected only the very highest from Shaw
and were quick to complain when they felt it was not
present. But in the midst of their most caustic criticism
the critics respected Shaw and his contribution to their
intellectual lives. They felt that even poor Shaw was
better than no Shaw.
CHAPTER V
SHAW'S RECEPTION IN THE 1940'S: THE PRODUCTIONS OF
KATHARINE CORNELL, MAURICE EVANS, ET AL. : 1940-1950
Shaw opened the decade with a disaster, Geneva (January
3 0, 1940), a play which ran for only fifteen performances.1
It was not that the critics were antagonistic. Brooks
Atkinson, for example, said that "it would be pleasant to
salute Geneva as at least a lively conversation piece. But
p
in this theatregoer's opinion it is dull." In the same
way, Richard Lockridge tried to write a favorable review,
but the best he could say was that the quality of Shaw's
ideas was "not . . . what it used to be."^ And Richard
Watts, Jr., a friendly critic, asserted that the play was
Shaw "in a garrulous and expansive mood characteristic of
1Salem, p. 31.
2
"English Company Brings Bernard Shaw's Geneva to New
York," The New York Times, January 31, 1940, p. 15»
^"Bernard Shaw Talks of Europe's Troubles in Geneva,"
The New York Sun, January 31> 1940.
112
113
.,4
his later period. . . . This time he is merely tedious.
George Jean Nathan condemned Geneva in toto, and saw the
5
play as evidence of a decline in Shaw's talent and mind.
Grenville Vernon, for Commonweal, wrote that "it would be
useless to denominate Geneva a play; it is an interesting,
/ ?
at times an exhilarating discussion." And Rosamond Gilder
summed up the reception by saying that "the play received
short shrift on Broadway."^ But Miss Gilder felt that the
play had some merits, for she wrote that it was "full of
pithy discourse, sharp caricature, and malicious wit"
(p. 2 3 8). The criticism was clear and unequivocal: the
play was a'failure. In fact it was the last of Shaw's late
dramas that anyone had the courage to produce in New York,
for from this play to 1950, Broadway saw only revivals of
old Shavian favorites.
The Doctor's Dilemma (March 11, 1941), surprised the
critics: they expected the play to have become dated,
^"Mr. Shaw Nods," The New York Herald Tribune, January
31, 1940.
^"Mind and Matter," Newsweek, XV (February 12, 1940),
38.
6"Geneva," XXXI (February 16, 1940), 3 6 7.
^"Geneva: Broadway in Review," Theatre Arts Monthly,
XXIV (April 1940), 2 3 8.
114
topical and dull; they expected to dislike it, but they
were captivated instead. Some writers attributed the suc
cess of The Doctor's Dilemma to Katharine Cornell, and there
Q
is no doubt that Shaw was fortunate in the leading lady.
Brooks Atkinson devoted his review to praise of Miss Cornell
and said nothing about the play except to remark that Shaw
was "a frightfully talkative p e r s o n . Richard Watts, Jr.,
gave credit to both play and players:
The Doctor^ Dilemma ... is as fresh and stimulating
as it always was. [it is] . . .a completely satisfying
play acted precisely as it should be.10
Richard Lockridge also praised the play generously:
Through the long, but never too long, evening the imperti
nent observations of Bernard Shaw . . . crackle as they
crackled long ago . . . there are flaws . . . but the
. play is delightful.**
Q
It had 121 performances. Salem, p. 31*
9"No One Is Pooled by the Stars," The New York Times,
March 30, 1941, Section IX, p. 1.
*°"Doctors at Bay," The New York Herald Tribune,
March 12, 1941.
**"Miss Cornell Revives The Doctor's Dilemma at the
Shubert Theatre, The New York Sun, March 12, 1941.
115
Prom the popular point of view there was no doubt about It;
the play was a brilliant success, as Life reported:
Although Shaw's doctor-baiting comedy was written in 1906,
and has been produced twice before in New York, it holds
12
its own as the season's most brilliant play.
Rosamond Gilder wrote that "with the advent of Katharine
Cornell's revival of The Doctor's Dilemma . . . the mid
winter theatrical doldrums came suddenly to an end."^
However, the rest of the reviewers were unimpressed.
Joseph Wood Krutch felt that
Shaw did not create living characters: [Jennifer Dubedat]
has no psychological processes, merely gestures made in
14
response to the strings which the playwright pulls.
The critic for The New Yorker acknowledged the success of
the play, but he felt that there was not much substance to
it. "The celebrated beard, after all, has always been
quite a playwright, though powerfully given to talking
12"The Doctor's Dilemma: A Smash Hit," X (May 5*
1941), 8 3.
^ " The Doctor's Dilemma: Broadway in Review," Theatre
Arts Monthly, XXV (May 1941), 327-
1^"The Doctor's Dilemma," The Nation, CLII (March 22,
1941), 331-
116
nonsense."1^ Stark Young quarreled with the artistry of
The Doctor's Dilemma, but he could not help enjoying it.
This is one of those Shaw theses that are close to silly.
. . . What Mr. Shaw has to say ... is essentially a
platitude. [There were] . . . the mixed up hash of
values and effects all through the play. Two-thirds of
16
The Doctor's Dilemma I enjoyed nevertheless.
The notice in Newsweek attacked Shaw as a "confused critic
of everything."1^ Time's reviewer thought the play was
funny and liked the staging "as witty and handsome a pro-
l8
duction as it ever had." Grenville Vernon also empha
sized the comedy, though he believed that Shaw was merely
a clown.
Shaw has always been part sage, part poet, part harlequin
and part just bad boy; he is never more compounded of
iq
these than in The Doctor's Dilemma.
•^Wolcott Gibbs, "Shaw's Sawbones," XVII (March 22,
1941), 36.
l6"The Doctor's Dilemma," The New Republic, CIV (March
24, 1941), 404.
^John O'Hara, "The Doctor's Dilemma," XVII (March 24,
1941), 70.
l8"The Doctor's Dilemma," XXXVII (March 24, 1941), 43-
*9"The Doctor's Dilemma, Katharine Cornell's Triumph,"
Commonweal, XXXIII (March 28, 1941), 574.
117
And the reviewer for The Catholic World was not praising
the playwright when she wrote that "To bolster his main
situation, Mr. Shaw depends less upon plausibility than
20
his powers of persuasion."
Prom all of this it is clear that though the play was
a popular success, it did not win the respect of the
critics. No major critic paid tribute to The Doctor^
Dilemma as great comedy; instead, the feeling was that this
was a great production of a mediocre play. Shaw was again,
as he was so often in the twenties, the best on Broadway
and the shining light of the season, but his was a victory
by default because there simply was no competition.
Having served her apprenticeship in Shavian drama with
several successful productions, including her memorable
Saint Joan (1936), Katharine Cornell revived Candida
(April 27, 1942). The production established the play as
the critical favorite of all the Shaw plays done in New
York, for it received nothing but praise from the over-
21
whelmed reviewers. For example, Brooks Atkinson wrote:
PO
E. V. R. Wyatt, "The Doctor's Dilemma," CLIII (May
1941), 216.
21
Salem records a run of 27 performances. But it was
supposed to be a limited engagement done for a war charity.
The demand for tickets forced an extension of the original
run.
118
Although Bernard Shaw’s Candida has been put on the stage
many times, no one ever saw It until yesterday afternoon
when it was really acted. . . . Candida provides an espe-
— — — — — 22
cially glowing experience in the theatre.
Mr. Richard Watts, Jr. agreed on the superiority of the
production:
This is the finest Candida I have encountered in some
thing like twenty years of careful attendance upon all
the productions of the work offered in this vicinity.
. . . Candida is one of the authentic classics of the
•--- 2^
modern theatre. J
The critic for The New York Sun advised his readers: "If
you have been waiting for ideal theatre-going conditions,
2 4
you can now find them at the Shubert Theatre." Newsweek
recorded that "the critics gave it raves ... a thousand
mail orders were rejected each day."2^ Other writers called
22"Candida," The New York Times, April 28, 1942, p. 24.
23"Something Memorable," The New York Herald Tribune,
April 28, 1942.
24 ..
Richard Lockridge, Shaw's Candida Is Brilliantly
Revived at the Shubert Theatre," April 28, 1942.
25"Cornell's Candida," XIX (May 25, 1942), 60.
119
26
the play "the happiest event of this season's theatre,"
27
"A classic," and"the most brilliant all-star revival
of the year."2®
Not since Arnold Daly's Candida was New York so com
pletely taken with a Shaw play. Even Saint Joan did not
win as much response and approval. Certainly it is evident
from this production, that whatever the comparative merits
of the other plays, Candida has been the best loved and
most successful of the Shaw plays on the New York stage.
Gertrude Lawrence as Eliza pleased the public and be
mused the critics with Pygmalion (December 26, 1945), a
29
production which ran for 179 performances. ^ The critics
were bemused because they felt that Pygmalion was not the
best of Shaw, yet the play outshone and outclassed its
competition. They expected the play to have dated, but the
comedy proved as durable and as lively as ever; and through
out the criticism runs a tone of wonder that the old drama
26
David Burnham, "Candida," Commonweal, XXXVI(May 29,
1942), 135.
2^"Candida," Theatre Arts Monthly, XXVI (July 1942),
421.
2®"Candida," Theatre Arts Monthly, XXVI (July 1942),
421.
2^Salem, p. 32.
120
had held up so well. As Lewis Nichols put It, "Pygmalion
now Is well Into Its second generation and Is still lively.
. . . The play remains both funny and touching."3^ Herrick
Brown wrote that
This fable ... Is not Shaw at the top of his form . . .
many of its barbs . . . had become dated. The added
passage of time has accentuated that flaw. In its charac
terization, however, and in plenty of its wit, it is as
fresh and alive as ever .... it is still first-rate
theatre.^1
Howard Barnes paid tribute to Miss Lawrence "and the time
less comedy script by G. B. S. which make this Pygmalion
an evening of great good humor."32 The drama section of
Time said that Pygmalion "still holds up ... as one of
Shaw's most actable and entertaining plays," while Life
went a step further and gave a reason:
3°"Pygmalion," The New York Times, January 6, 1946,
Section II, p. 1.
31"Pygmalion Revived," The New York Sun, December 27,
1945.
32"Christmas Champagne," The New York Herald Tribune,
December 27, 1945.
33"Pygmalion: Old Play in Manhattan," XLVII (January
7, 1946), 88.
121
The 32-year-old play still sounds so wise and funny that
it makes most current comedies sound like callow
squeaking.J
Life's analysis was confirmed by Stark Young who wrote of
the production: "The occasion as a whole is delightful,
the play devastating as compared with most of our plays
today."33 Many of the other critics repeated the idea that
Shaw was "simply outside the class of any American or
English playwright who has produced anything during the
last few years."3^ The only unfavorable review was by
Wolcott Gibbs in the New Yorker:
Pygmalion, though a typical expression of that absurd and
whiskery personality, makes a rather tame and disappoint-
37
ing appearance on the modern stage. 1
3^"Pygmalloni" XX (January 14, 1946), 67-
^ 1 1 Pygmalion— Theatre Incorporated, " The New Republic,
CXXV (January 21, 1946), 91*
3^"Pygmalion," Nation, CLXII (February 9> 1946), 1 7 6.
Another expression of this idea was in "Eliza Off the Ice,"
Saturday Review of Literature, XXIX (January 12, 1946),
2 5-2 6.
37"Pygmalion," XXI (January 5, 1946), 42.
122
However, the other critics considered the 1946 Pygmalion a
"delectable gift package of Shaw's beguiling comedy."^®
For the third time in successive decades, Katharine
Cornell staged Candida (April 3, 1946). But this time
though the play was accepted as a classic, her success was
limited; the critics were cooler and more inclined to find
fault with the heroine, for they were less sentimental and
much less receptive to Candida as a person. Significantly
39
the production had only twenty-four performances.
Lewis Nichols announced the revival of "Mr. Shaw's
most popular play," and praised Miss Cornell's performance,
saying that as Candida "she has the smile of Mona Lisa."^0
The reviewer for the Herald Tribune called the revival a
"lucid and eloquent production of a modern classic."^
However, something was missing, as the writer for the Sun
made clear:
V. R. Wyatt, "Pygmalion,"The Catholic World,
CLXII (February 1946), 455* See also "Pygmalion,l v Theatre
Arts Monthly, XXX (March 1946), 134.
■^Salem, p. 30.
Candida," The New York Times, April 14, 1946, Sec
tion II, p. 1.
^Howard Barnes, "Candida Resurgent,1 1 April 4, 1946.
123
The current Candida may not hold you in its spell as it
did in previous productions, but it is still a play to
42
be seen and quite worthy of revival.
The drama critic for Newsweek expressed the same opinion
when he wrote that "although the present production does
not top Miss Cornell’s previous revivals of Candida, it
is highly entertaining."^3
This reception, cool in comparison to the accolades
of the past, was but the prelude to unprecedented attacks
on the hitherto sacrosanct person of Candida herself.
Joseph Wood Krutch extolled the play but remarked of
Candida:
Katharine Cornell plays her one big crucial scene at the
end warmly and humanely, despite the rather staggering
task of preventing Candida from becoming an insufferable
44
prig.
E. V. R. Wyatt who had seen all of the Candida's done in
New York, including Arnold Daly's of 1903, sharply ques
tioned Candida's behavior:
42
Ward Morehouse, "Katharine Cornell Again Plays
Beautifully in Candida," April 4, 1946.
43"Candida," XXVII (April 15, 1946), 84.
^"Candida," Nation, CLXII (April 20, 1946), 487.
124
Miss Cornell is as beautiful as ever as she sits before
the fire, but we couldn't help wondering as we left the
theatre how she and Morell were going to get along once
they had both admitted that she was really the head of
the family. It would all depend on Morell's fundamental
humility and in the long run, I begin to suspect he may
be the finer character. I doubt if Morell would ever
have been so relentless as Candida when she exposed his
4 * 5
weakness before Marchbanks. ^
The critical revolt against Candida reached its climax in
an article some years later in a learned journal. Here it
was contended that Candida was a Philistine.
I have watched the women in the audience wipe their eyes
unashamedly and heard the men sigh secretively over their
idol of womanly perfection. And yet I'll bet vulgarly
that If the actresses had acted the part as Shaw wrote
it and that if the audiences had known Shaw's real
opinion of Candida, there would have been hisses and boos
instead.2 ^
John Mason Brown did not attack Candida; rather he attacked
47
"Shaw's Idea of a poet" as embodied in Marchbanks. 1 Brown
45"Candida," The Catholic World, CLXIII (May 1946),
168.
^Arthur H. Nethercot, "The Truth About Candida," PMLA,
LXIV (September 1949), 64l.
^ "Candida," The Saturday Review of Literature, XXIX
(May 4, 1946), 28.
125
considered that Shaw's idea of a poet was Inadequate, a
thesis which obviously would destroy the sense and theme
of the play. If one accepts Nethercot's view, the more
recent critics were closer to Shaw's intention in writing
the play. Clearly the critics of 1946 were far more dis
criminating than those of 1903 or of the nineteen thirties.
The reviewers still considered Candida a classic of the
modern theatre, but they were far from accepting the play
without thought or question.
The trend toward a more thoughtful and understanding
view of Shavian drama, so clearly evident in Candida, was
continued in the reception of Androcles and the Lion
(December 19, 1946), a production which ran for forty per-
48
formances. For example, Brooks Atkinson illustrated
this trend in a brief history of the way the play had been
received and the way his generation reacted to it. Andro
cles and the Lion
shocked theatregoers thirty-three years ago . . . because
it seemed like a lampoon of the Christian religion. It
did not shock anyone when the Theatre Guild revived it
twenty-one years ago. Now . . . anyone ought to see that
49
it lampoons the world and idolizes Christians.
48
Salem, p. 30.
^Brooks Atkinson, "Androcles and the Lion," The New
York Times, December 20, 1946, p. 29.
126
Of course, many reviewers took the traditional view
of Shaw as a lighthearted jester, a purveyor of entertain
ment and little more. Howard Barnes wrote:
There Is nothing of vaguely momentous significance about
the play itself. ... it is tongue-in-cheek from start
to finish. But the jester's bells ring merrily in Andro
cles and the Lion. . . . Farce can afford to be slight
when it is scintillating and sustained.* *
Another reviewer wrote that "Androcles, showing
G. B. S. in an amiable mood, is a generally diverting
travesty.And Joseph Wood Krutch advised his readers
to "accept it for what it is— a joyously irresponsible
little farce."^2
However, many of the critics not only enjoyed the
comedy, they were impressed with other levels in the drama.
Wolcott Gibbs, the supercilious reviewer for The New
Yorker, affirmed that Androcles was
^°"Cause for Roaring," The New York Herald Tribune,
December 20, 1946.
•^Ward Morehouse, "Androcles and the Lion, Jovial
Comedy, Is Presented at the International," The New York
Sun, December 20, 1946.
"Androcles and the Lion," Nation, CLXIV (January 4,
1947), 2 5.
127
a quaint combination of low, almost abysmal comedy and
a neat, sardonic, and sometimes rather moving discussion
53
of comparative religion.
And Time magazine's drama reporter was well aware of the
serious aspects of the play because he said that "for all
Shaw's playfulness, the Christians are allowed their serious
thoughts.Stark Young was pleased with the fusion of
the entertaining and the wise.
I wondered . . . whether this old Shaw piece would be a
bore or not. It was not a bore at all. . . . What he
wants to say is brilliant and delicious. ... I was
55
amazed at its freshness.^
The tendency to regard Shaw lightly was a sore point with
John Mason Brown who protested that
The tragedy of our present-day acceptance of Androcles
and the Lion is that it means only we are so ready to
enjoy its fun that we have forgotten its challenge.
53MAndrocles and the Lion," XXII (December 28, 1946),
36.
5^"Androcles and the Lion," XLVIII (December 30, 1946),
34.
55"welcome Repertory," The New Republic, CXVI (January
6, 1947), 42.
56'»gtraight Prom the Lion's Mouth," The Saturday Review
of Literature, XXX (January 11, 1947), 2 5.
S7
The majority of commentators felt as Brown. This senti
ment was summed up well by the writer of the review in
Theatre Arts Monthly:
Shaw’s outward garment is of course motley, but the core
of his argument is wonder. For all his fun, he is tender
about the little man who in spite of his shaking knees and
58
muddled thinking has the courage to die for a cause.
The play was a reasonable success with the public, but it
was primarily a critical triumph in the respectful and
thoughtful way in which it was received. Androcles and the
Lion achieved new status as high comedy and first-class
drama. It was considered a classic of its kind because the
critics saw its enduring qualities.
Man and Superman (October 8, 1947), caught New York
completely by surprise because the drama was a stunning
success in the face of universal expectation that it would
be a dated period piece. With Maurice Evans as Tanner,
the play delighted the critics, and it ran for 295
•^"Androcles and the Lion," America, LXXVI (January 11,
1947), 417. Also E. V. R. Wyatt, "Androcles and the Lion,1 1
The Catholic World, CLXIV (February 1947), 456-457-
Androcles and the Lion: American Repertory
Theatre," XXXI (February 1947), 17-18.
129
performances, after which Evans took It on a successful
tour of the country.^9
Like most of the critics, Brooks Atkinson was grateful
that the play set such high standards:
Man and Superman has given the season its first crackle
of brilliance. Mr. Shaw and Mr. Evans have given us
the most exhilarating evening in this autumn on
Broadway.
And in a later review he stated that "few of us foresaw
the tingling enjoyment the current performance provides.
/T 1
. . . Man and Superman is the wittiest play in town."
In the Sun, Ward Morehouse wrote that the play provided
"a gay and enormously entertaining evening." And his
colleague in the Herald Tribune concurred, saying that
the piece is an utterly absorbing and satisfying comedy
of manners and morals. . . . Maurice Evans is to be con
gratulated for bringing a superb comedy to vivid stage
life.63
59Salem, p. 31.
60l l Man and Superman," The New York Times, October 9>
19^7, P. 31.
6l"Man and Superman," The New York Times, October 19,
1947, Section II, p. 1.
62"Man and Superman, A Stimulating Comedy Delightfully
Played at the Alvin," October 9, 1947*
63Howard Barnes, "Super Revival," October 9, 1947.
130
f i k h
Time, Newsweek, * * and Life echoed the views of the
critics of the dally press. And the chorus of praise con
tinued unabated In the various reviews and journals. In
The New Republic, Irwin Shaw was generous In praise of
Shaw and Evans, saying that "the Theatre must admit its
debt to Maurice Evans for this production."^ Joseph Wood
Krutch took the success of the play as proof that Shaw's
drama would endure:
As time goes on it becomes more and more evident how com
pletely the best of Shaw's plays are in the grand tradi
tion of classical comedy. . . . [Tanner] and Ann are
merely Benedict and Beatrice. They are also . . .
Millamant and Mirabell.^®
The super-sophisticated Wolcott Gibbs of The New Yorker,
undaunted and unaffected by almost unanimous approval by
critics and public alike, would unbend only far enough to
^ " Man and Superman," L (October 20, 1947), 73*
^ " Man and Superman," XXX (October 20, 1947)» 8 8.
^ " Man and Superman," XXIII (October 27, 1947),
107-108.
67"in praise of Impudence," CXVII (October 20, 1947),
38.
flQ
"Man and Superman," Nation, CLXV (October 25, 1947),
454.
admit that Man and Superman was "pleasant."
131
On the whole, though it is a pleasant play, it is cer
tainly not one of Shaw's best, and the central message
... is hardly likely to startle anybody very much
60
these days.
But most of the writers delighted in the brilliance of the
production.^ They felt that "the entire thing is delicious
and should not be missed."^1 , Rosamond Gilder summed up the
general impression when she wrote that the play exhibited
"elements of first-rate theatre."^2
The acceptance of Man and Superman proved that Shavian
drama had lasting qualities such as brilliant dialogue,
amusing characters, wit and wisdom. It had not aged, and
above all it showed that audiences liked to be treated as
adults and that they enjoyed the challenge to vigorous
thought. The play was a triumph for Shaw and the actors;
"Man and Superman," XXIII (October 18, 1947), 59*
^°For example, E. V. R. Wyatt, "Man and Superman,"
The Catholic World, CLXVI (November 1947), 170.
^Kappo Phelan, "Man and Superman," Commonweal, XLVII
(October 24, 1947), 41.
^2"Actors All," Theatre Arts Monthly, XXXI (December
1947), 12.
132
for playgoers it was an exhilarating experience in theatre.
John Bull*s Other Island (February 10, 1948), was a
failure. It suffered by the inevitable comparison with
the previous Shaw play produced by Maurice Evans; the script
was not as good, the acting was not as effective, and the
7-2
play closed after eight performances. J The critics tried
to be kind to John Bull's Other Island, and they had many
good things to say; however, they always followed the
praise with enough disapproval to kill any production.
Brooks Atkinson's comment sums up the critics' reaction:
Although it is a shrewd and witty play, it is long, it
is verbose, it Is not as brilliant a company or produc-
74
tion as Maurice Evans'.
The reviewer for the Herald Tribune bravely asserted that
"John Bull's Other Island is entertaining," but he had to
admit that "age has not improved this Shavian conversation
piece. . . . it drags at times; it is never properly
resolved.The notice in the Sun was not much better:
^Salem, p. 3 1.
74
' "John Bull's Other Island," The New York Times,
February 11, 1948, p. 3 3.
75»off to a Good Start," February 11, 1948.
133
There is a great deal of antiquity about John Bull’s
Other Island, and it is by no means one of Shaw's most
exhilarating exercises, but it has some delightful
moments and offers considerable fun if you can go along
with the company until it gets warmed up.^
The critic for The New Yorker complained that it "seemed
languid and antique."^ Joseph Wood Krutch also felt that
the play had dated, "that it was only for Shavians."^® No
such reserve was shown by Irwin Shaw, who thought it
one of Bernard Shaw's worst plays. ... I think a critic
is now within his rights in suggesting mildly, that John
70 '
Bull's Other Island be tenderly laid to rest. ^
In spite of the fact that the production had too much
against it and was obviously doomed, some critics insisted
on paying tribute to Shaw even in failure. They treated
the play as if it were a magnificent old ruin, and they
^Ward Morehouse, "A Moderate Shavian Frolic," February
11, 1948.
^"The Great Man Again," XXIII (February 21, 1948), 53*
^ " John Bull's Other Island," Nation, CLXVI (February
2 1, 1948), 219-
79"Obituary," The New Republic, CXVIII (March 1, 1948),
24.
134
were courteous and deferential to the man who had long held
their respect. For Instance, the review In Newsweek said
graciously that
the Shavian wit is unimpaired, and the lethal sideswipes
are just as topical as ever. ... it is still first-
rate entertainment.®^*
In the same way, Time1s drama editor wrote that "at its
OI
best John Bull's Other Island is still impressive."
Kappo Phelan considered it "one of the honest delights of
D p
the season." Another reviewer affirmed that "the situa
tions and lines fizz with Shaw's usual effervescent humor?' ®^
In sum, John Bull's Other Island was not a viable play,
and it was a failure with the public and most of the critics.
Yet even in failure, the drama was not despised because it
was not felt to be a slight and brainless farce. Shaw
®°"John Bull's Other Island," XXXI (February 23, 1948),
80.
®lnJohn Bull's Other Island: Old Play in Manhattan,"
LI (February 23, 1948), 5 6.
D p
"John Bull's Other Island," Commonweal, XLVII
(February 2 7, 1948), 494.
®^Theophilus Lewis, "John Bull's Other Island,"
America, LXXVIII (March 6, 1948), 641.
135
apparently had put too much thought and wit Into It, and
the critics gave credit where It was due even though they
acknowledged that the play Itself was no longer stage
worthy .
There seemed to be two minds about You Never Can Tell
(March 16, 19^8), a production which ran for thirty perform-
84
ances. The reviewers of the daily press and some maga
zines considered the play dated as well as verbose, and
they impatiently dismissed it, but in the journals generally
the critics were much more favorable.
Brooks Atkinson pronounced You Never Can Tell dated
O r
and not enjoyable because it was a "cascade of talk." ^
From Ward Morehouse in the Sun came the statement that You
Never Can Tell was "a fragile comedy and a feeble one, and
86
its pleasures are scattered." Howard Barnes wrote that
it was "as dated as a hansom cab and not nearly as expedi
tious at getting from one point to another."8* ^ "The trial
of listening to You Never Can Tell was too much for Wolcott
8^Salem, p. 32.
8^"You Never Can Tell," The New York Times, March 17,
1948, p. 3 1.
86"A Very Mild Shavian Frolic," March 17, 19^8.
Qrr
"Handsome Period Piece," The New York Herald Tribune,
March 17, 19^8.
136
88
Gibbs. And the critic for Commonweal suggested that the
fig
play needed cutting. y On the other hand, Harold Clurman
spoke for many writers when he gave the lie to the news
paper critics.
The daily reviewers have suggested that Shaw's ideas in
You Never Can Tell are now too old-fashioned to make
" on
good fun. I don't believe it for a moment.
In harmony with this opinion was Joseph Wood Krutch: "To
me it was, with minor exceptions, gay, lively, high-spirited,
shrewd, wise, exuberant, and overflowing with intelligent
fun."91 The critics of Time^2 and Newsweek93 expressed
the same views as Krutch.
^"Hollywood, Shaw and Sartre," The New Yorker, XXIV
(March 27, 1938), 49-
89Kappo Phelan, "You Never Can Tell," XLVIII (April 16,
1948), 635-636.
9°"You Never Can Tell," The New Republic, CXVIII
(March 29, 1948), 30.
91"You Never Can Tell," Nation, CLXVI (March 27, 1948),
361.
92"You Never Can Tell," LI (March 29, 1948), 5 6.
93"You Never Can Tell," XXXI (March 29, 1948), 82.
137
Behind the refusal of some of the critics to condemn
You Never Can Tell was an awareness that no matter what
the limitations of the play, it had something to offer,
and in comparison to other playwrights Shaw was still
superior. As John Mason Brown wrote, "A third-rate play
by G.B.S. has more to offer than the best play by most
dramatists."^ E. V. R. Wyatt expressed the same idea in
her review when she said that
It seems strange that Shaw's early writing should now
seem like the mellifluent cadences of a music box against
05
the harsh jangles of modern comedy. ^
On the whole, You Never Can Tell was a moderate suc
cess considering that it was an early Shaw play (1896),
that it was a somewhat dated period piece, that it held
the stage for thirty-nine performances, and that it won
the respect of many critics. It was, in fact, a minor
triumph for Shaw to hold his own against his younger
competition.
9^"You Never Can Tell," The Saturday Review of Litera
ture, XXXI (April 24, 1948), 32.
^"You Never Can Tell," The Catholic World, CLXVII
(May 1948), I6 9.
138
Caesar and Cleopatra (December 21, 1949)» conquered
New York and reigned for 149 performances over a dazzled
96
public. Only one critic, Harold Clurman, attacked the
drama:
As to the play itself ... I venture to say that it is
no great shakes. It must have seemed devilishly bright
at the time of its composition, but though it still
retains a certain quaint affability . . . there is some-
97
thing boyish and very nearly silly about it too. 1
Perhaps some of the adverse criticism was due to the per
formance of Cedric Hardwicke who came down with laryngitis
at the start of the run.
Robert Garland was impatient with the actors when he
wrote that "Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra is a worthi
er play, a funnier play and a better show than it was last
night."9® However, most critics praised the play itself,
as in Morehouse's evaluation: "Shaw's study ... is a
9 6
Salem, p. 30.
^ " Caesar and Cleopatra," The New Republic, CXXII
(January 2, 1950), 21.
^®"Shaw's Pine Comedy Let Down by Actors," The New
York American, December 22, 1949* Cedric Hardwicke played
Caesar and Lili Palmer played Cleopatra.
139
rich and stimulating play. For all its antiquity, it is
a panoramic comedy that has a definite quality of timeless
ness. Brooks Atkinson wrote that Caesar and Cleopatra
was a "wonderful comedy" because it included "some extraor
dinarily sagacious and moving judgments on greatness of
character and the humane treatment of human beings. "^00
The critic for The New Yorker "found it a remarkably comic
and stimulating experience."'1 ’ 0^ What made the play reward
ing to the critics was the discovery that Shaw was more
than witty; he had wisdom and the ability to create memor
able characters:
The character of Caesar is, of course, the finest thing
in the piece, and it is Shaw’s subtle, profound, and
moving delineation of a man replete with years and vic
tories and of his attempts to communicate his wisdom to
a young and lovely girl— that gives the depth of true
comedy to what might otherwise have been no more, though
102
assuredly no less, than a delightful farce.
^"Shavian Wit and Eloquence," The New York Sun,
December 22, 19^9*
^^"Caesar and Cleopatra," The New York Times, Decem
ber 22, 19^9, p. 2 8.
101"Caesar and Cleopatra," XXV (December 31> 19^8)* 38.
*02Margaret Marshall, "Caesar and Cleopatra," Nation,
CLXIX (December 31. 19^9). 6 5 0.
140
10^
The same approval was voiced in Time, J The Saturday Re-
104 10B
view of Literature, and Theatre Arts. ^
The critics and public liked Caesar and Cleopatra
because it was a solid drama with comedy and vision. It
was solid because it had action, characterization and some
thing to say. In short, Caesar and Cleopatra was a genuine
success, and left the critics convinced that Shavian drama
had lasting qualities.
Having succeeded with Man and Superman, it was logical
for Maurice Evans to produce another Shavian play. In his
choice of The Devil's Disciple (January 25, 1950), he was
fortunate, for the play was a great success and enjoyed
i nfi
both critical acclaim and a 127-performance run. Brooks
Atkinson liked its fun and freshness:
1Q^"Caesar and Cleopatra,1 1 LV (January 2, 1950), 52.
10^John Mason Brown, “Caesar and Cleopatra," XXXIII
(January 14, 1950), 26-28.
1Q-^"Caesar and Cleopatra,1 1 XXXIV (March 1950), 8.
Other favorable articles were: Kappo Phelan, "Caesar and
Cleopatra," LI, Commonweal (January 13, 1950), 390; "Caesar
and Cleopatra," Life, XXVIII (January 30, 1950), 46-48;
"Caesar and Cleopatra," The Catholic World, CLXX (February
1950), 384.
Salem, p. 30.
141
The last half of The Devil's Disciple is a comic master
piece. . . . You would think that The Devil's Disciple
had just been written by an impudent genius and that it
107
had never been acted before. 1
The critic for the Sun reported his own and the audience's
approval when he wrote that "last night's audience responded
108
vociferously to a rich, fast evening of theatrical fun."
In the Herald Tribune, Howard Barnes wondered why it had
not been done more often because the play had "rare
enchantment."
History repeated itself, for the notices on The Devil's
Disciple read much like those written for the Richard Mans
field production in 1897* and the Theatre Guild production
in 1 9 2 3. The reviewers enjoyed "the gaiety and wit" of
The Devil's Disciple. And according to the report in
Time, "it left the critics cheering.Specifically,
107"The Devil's Disciple," The New York Times, January
26, 1950, p. 23.
lOSwiniam Hawkins, "Evans at His Best in The Devil' s
Disciple," January 26, 1950.
109"A Rich Revival," January 26, 1950.
^°Margaret Marshall, "The Devil's Disciple," Nation,
CLXX (February 4, 1950), 114.
lll"The Devil's Disciple," LV (February 6, 1950), 66.
142
112
they approved the "interesting characters." They espe
cially liked "the delightful General Burgoyne.The
writer for Theatre Arts Monthly spoke for many when he said
that Burgoyne made the trial scene "a distinctive moment of
high comedy. "H**-
There was one sour note in all this harmony. The
critic for The New Yorker began his review by praising the
play, but he ended by reversing himself.
Dudgeon . . . and General Burgoyne conduct what must be
the most urbane discussion ever held between an accused
man and his prosecutor. . . . This scene is undoubtedly
Mr. Shaw at his incomparable best. Whether . . . this
is enough to make up for the languid and contrived
material that opens the evening is . . . debatable.
115
Altogether my guess would be that it isn't. ^
However, the majority opinion was that the play was worth
while because it was delightful entertainment. Most of the
112
Kappo Phelan, "The Devil's Disciple," Commonweal,
LI (February 24, 1950), 536.
^^Harold ciurman, "The Devil's Disciple," The New
Republic, CXXII (February 27, 1950), 20.
ll4"The Devil's Disciple," XXXIV (April 1950), 13-
115Wolcott Gibbs, "The Devil's Disciple," XXVI (March 4
1950), 58.
143
critics were aware that the material was contrived, and
they enjoyed it the more because they felt that they knew
what Shaw was doing and that the play was a compliment to
their intelligence rather than an insult. They were grate
ful to Evans and to Shaw for good comedy.
The critics did not like the production of Arms and
the Man (October 14, 1950), because it was poorly staged
and weakly acted. They had no praise for anyone associated
with it, and they almost ignored the production. Such
reviews as were written seemed unable to decide whether
to attack the play, the production or both. Brooks Atkinson
condemned the production roundly, though he said Arms and
the Man still had "some fun in it."*^ The critic for the
Herald Tribune bluntly denounced the drama:
This comedy of military manners is not able to acquire
much of a sparkle until nearly the end of its three acts.
Certainly Shaw is by no means dated, but it is a fuzzy
117
and vacuous production. '
X lfi
"Arms and the Man," The New York Times, October 20,
1950, p. 34.
■^^"Otis L. Gurnsey, Jr., "The Coating Melts," October
20, 1950, p. 20.
144
The notice In Newsweek also condemned It and called the
| I Q
play "fragmentary fun."
The staging was curtly dismissed as Incompetent by
Walter Kerr, but he spoke respectfully of the drama as an
"old but still very playable comedy."11^ Harold Clurman
also chose to praise the play rather than to bewail the
weakness of the production, and it is clear that Clurman
liked the comedy.
The best of Arms and the Man is its delightful, almost
exhilarating form of vaudeville. . . . this is Shaw's
intelligent man's guide to bright entertainment and
120
common sense.
However, in spite of the coldness, as well as outright
condemnation of most of the critics, the play ran for 110
121
performances. In view of the critical attitude, the
public support of Arms and the Man was remarkable, and
represented something of a triumph for Shaw, for it was
ll8"Arms and the Man," XXXVI (October 30, 1950), 78.
119"Arms and the Man," Commonweal, LIII (November 10,
1950), 121.
120"A Little Shaw," The New Republic, CXXIII (November
13, 1950), 21.
121
Salem, p. 30.
145
a tribute to the dramatist that even a bad production of
one of his oldest plays could still find favor with the
playgoing public of New York.
In sum, the nineteen-forties for Shavian drama was a
period of revivals. With the exception of the Ill-fated
Geneva, the productions were of old favorites which sur
prised the critics by delighting the public and outclassing
the offerings of the contemporary playwrights. Many critics
came to the theatres prepared to patronize and tolerate
dramas which they considered dated; Instead, they had to
admit that Shaw's plays had a vital combination of dramatic
elements that gave them timelessness. Shavian plays not
only held the stage, they tended to dominate the theatrical
seasons. For example, the productions of Katharine Cornell,
Gertrude Lawrence, and Maurice Evans were brilliant suc
cesses which also proved that Shaw's plays were appropriate
vehicles for great artists.
As the decade progressed, the criticism of Shaw's plays
grew more thoughtful and discriminating; for example, there
was an increased understanding of the author's intention
in Androcles, more grasp of his wisdom in Caesar and Cleo
patra, and greater insight into all of the characters,
particularly in Candida.
The period from 1940 to 1950 established and confirmed
Candida as the most popular Shaw play, with Man and Super
man, and Caesar and Cleopatra next in rank. However, all
of the plays were of Interest to a fanatical following of
Shavians who loyally supported almost any Shaw production,
and enabled some of the plays, like the Arms and the Man of
1950, to have a longer run than the criticism warranted.
In the nineteen-forties Shaw established his reputation as
a man of letters who had made a lasting contribution to
the drama.
CHAPTER VI
THE CRITICS AND THEIR ATTITUDES TOWARD
SHAW'S PLAYS GENERALLY: 1920-1950
The critics who wrote between 1920 and 1950 were faced
with a new Shaw. The playwright had become an established
writer, an international celebrity, and a leader in the
world of ideas. The spirit of the postwar world made Shaw's
intellectual audacity and realism far less shocking. For
example, the success of What Price Glory? (1924), made it
obvious that a whole new set of critical standards were in
force. Therefore, the critics were operating from a differ
ent perspective of time and of repeated viewings and read
ings of the plays. They had been given the opportunity
to think, to judge, and to come to grips with the task of
the critic. That task was to evaluate a playwright of
stature in terms of the standards of contemporary society,
a society which imposed conditions unlike those of any
previous age. The critic's task was to give meaning to
contemporary drama by showing its relationship to the drama
of the past. To make the playwright intelligible they had
to classify him in terms of traditional drama, and yet they
had to recognize the originality of Shaw's contribution.
147
148
Many critics refused the task. Some declined to
analyze what was acceptable as entertainment; others
parrotted the old charges that had been hurled at Shaw.
With notable exceptions, the general critical response was
to abandon judgment and refuse to analyze Shaw at all. In
proof of this, no major American study except Henderson’s
was made of Shaw until Eric Bentley's book in 1947**
Edmund Wilson's distinguished chapter, though influential,
2
was too brief to be considered a major study. In the
learned journals of the time there was a remarkable paucity
of scholarly articles on Shaw. In fact, the great mass of
critical response was occasioned by the production of the
plays, even some of this response seemed embarrassed and
reluctant, as if the critics felt insecure in dealing with
a baffling figure.
Prom 1920 to 1950, hundreds of articles appeared on
Shaw, most of which focused on the dramatist's personality.
Everyone had to pronounce on Shaw, from the most obscure
pedagogues writing manuals on the drama to the better known
critics like Joseph Wood Krutch and John Mason Brown. A
survey of this commentary is proper because it gives an
^Bernard Shaw (New York, 1947).
2"Bernard Shaw at Eighty," The Triple Thinkers (New
York, 1948), pp. 165-1 9 6.
149
overall view of the general reception accorded to Shaw from
both minor and major critics.
The minor critics, like William Winter, did not con
sider themselves minor or insignificant; they were heeded
by many, and they had definite ideas on Shaw. For instance,
Clayton Hamilton was certain that Shaw was finished by 1920:
But the pity of it is that a man who had been capable
of building Candida should cease to be a master builder,
or indeed a builder at all and that this infidelity to
a high vocation should be motivated by both laziness and
insincerity.
Hamilton went on to give the specifics of his indictment:
[Shaw tends to write] an endless stream of incoherent
dialogue (p. 59) • • • [and his characters are puppets
that] think as clearly as Mr. Shaw, but none of them can
feel, and by that token none of them is human. . . . they
have no blood within them. (p. 62)
Similarly, in 1921 William Lyon Phelps complained of Shaw's
cold rationality:
The ordinary theatre-goer is ready to surrender to the
atmosphere of romance; and what he gets is a cold douche.
Shaw's plays are clearly antiseptic, stimulating; his
laughter clears the air. But plays that substitute the
laughter of reason for the warm glow of romance lack
• ^Seen on the Stage (New York, 1920), p. 60.
150
something that is generally believed to be essential;
instead of having an emotional interest, they have the
keen play of dialectic. It is the same with his charac
ters; even his greatest single character, Candida, has
no charm; there is in all his plays only one figure that
4
has any charm, and that is the Lion.
Dr. Phelps, who should have known better, was actually
mourning the lack of conventional melodrama in Shaw's plays.
As if in answer to such critics, Ludwig Lewisohn in 1922
wrote:
Shaw is a great comic dramatist who has, at times,
followed the classical methods of comedy by confronting
shams with realities, man's fraudulent gestures with his
hidden self, but who, at other times, has invented the
new method of presenting on the stage a battle of those
naked ideas that struggle for mastery in the minds of
men. His best plays quiver with dramatic life and play
superbly before audiences who have risen to a perception
of the overwhelming reality of their conflicts. To the
supporters of melodrama and sentimental comedy they are
meaningless. But what, in the whole world of art and
c ;
thought, is not?-'
But the legend persisted that Shaw was so interested in
ideas that he was disqualified as a dramatist: even in
the year of Shaw's masterpiece Saint Joan (1924), a writer
proclaimed that
^Essays on Modern Dramatists (New York, 1921), p. 97.
^The Drama and the Stage (New York, 1922), p. 163.
151
Bernard Shaw Is not a dramatist in the sense that Shake
speare was a dramatist, or in the sense that Moliere was
a dramatist; he is a writer with a philosophy and a
clever knack of stage-tricks which he uses in order to
proclaim that philosophy.^
The Catholic press was represented by two kinds of
writers. There were those who were suspicious of Shaw’s
ideas and moral influence and who believed that "his
philosophy is unmitigated pessimism."7 On the other hand,
there were those who were more tolerant and appreciative
of Shaw:
He probably had more fun in the old days when he was
an intellectual A1 Capone and moral sissies thought he
was the devil's disciple. . . .
In another fifty years, or perhaps a hundred, our
children or grandchildren will appreciate Shaw's signi
ficance as a dramatic thinker. . . .
c
Nellie Burget Miller. The Living Drama: Historical
Development and Modern Movements Visualized (New York,
1922), p. 297-
7J. M. Gillis, "Shaw," The Catholic World, CXVIII
(January 1924), 5 2 8. See also Liam Brophy, "Veritable
Saint or Privileged Lunatic," The Catholic World, CLXIII
(July 19^6), 319-323 3 J- B. Sherrin, "Bernard Shaw Has Fun,"
The Catholic World, CLXVIII (December 1948), 180-181; Ashley
Pettis, "G.B.S.: In Tune with the Infinitesimal," The
Catholic World, CLXXI (July 1950), 266-271.
152
Shaw Is the outstanding English dramatist since
O
Shakespeare.
Just as there was a debate among Catholic writers on Shaw's
legitimacy and value as a dramatist, so there was a debate
among the critics on Shaw's status as an artist and his
unorthodox practice. This discussion raged from year to
year and from article to book.
Throughout the period some writers used literary com
parison to clarify Shaw's position. In a shrewd and dis
cerning comparison of Shaw and Mark Twain, Carl Van Doren
concluded that Shaw is greater because he is more at home
in "the world of ideas.William Lyon Phelps said that
"there is more wit and cerebration in one play of Shaw's
than in the entire Restoration drama."10 Another critics
compared Shaw unfavorably with Jonson and put the Irishman
in a class with Dickens:
Q
Theophilus Lewis, "GBS," America, LXXV (August 10,
1946), 452. See also the reviews of E. V. R. Wyatt in The
Catholic World. These are listed in the Bibliography and
Appendix.
^"Mark Twain and Bernard Shaw," Century, CIX (March
1925), 709.
10As I Like It. Third Series. (New York, 1926),
p. 186.
153
We can never love Shaw; and If we admire him, we must
admit that he Is by no means the man that Jonson was;
he stays nearer the surface of life, and (like Dickens)
carries his fight on an economic rather than a moral
level.11
And, of course, the Shakespeare standard was always a
12
ready comparison with which to measure Shaw's achievement.
But most of the attempts to assess Shaw's work were based
on the writer's sense of what a drama should be in plot,
emotion or characterization. For example, one critic con
cluded that "it will be to his drawback in literary history
that he always knew more about ideas than he knew about
people as individuals."1^ Sheldon Cheney felt that there
was an element of anti-theatre in Shavian drama:
His plays are not theatrical with the warm, glamorous,
human glow that has seemed in the past so characteristic
of the stage art. Perhaps he would sweep away that side
of the theatre as romantic and fictitious. To escape
"staginess," he casts away much that made Sophocles and
■^Robert Worthington, Sewanee Review, XLIII (April
1935), 229-
12
See J. W. Krutch on the Shakespeare and Shaw Cleo
patra plays, p. 170 of this dissertation.
^M. M. Colun, Forum and Century, XCIV (December 1935),
358.
154
Shakespeare truly theatrical. To some, who see the sen
suous element as legitimate in art, and who look for a
deeper spiritual-emotional evocation as the characteris
tic excellence of the stage play, it seems clear that
Shaw has, in the final view, made the supreme success in
a limited dramatic field, over toward the intellectual
and away from the sensuous-theatrical. He eschews theatre,
14
but uses the theatre compellingly, nay gorgeously.
By "theatre" Cheney meant spectacle and emotion for its
own sake. He was right to the extent that Shaw was against
these things if they did not function as part of the drama
itself. This was exactly how Shaw wanted to use the theatre.
However, there was a tone of wonder and puzzlement in
Cheney's analysis. It was as if he could not resolve his
own doubts about Shaw.
A more extreme example of doubt and critical malaise
vis-a-vis Shaw was Alfred Harding's lament in 1936:
It is rather harder to place correctly and estimate the
work of G.B.S., for he is still very much alive and
exceedingly vocal. . . . And he is not a negligible
person and yet, there was an early promise which he
never quite fulfilled, a hint of something Important he
had to say, to which he never got around. But . . . the
14
The Theatre: Three Thousand Years of Drama, Acting
and Stagecraft (New York. 1935), P* 460.
155
plays of G.B.S. are not likely to grow In stature down
IS
the perspective of the years. J
So it went, right up to Shaw's death In 1950. The
writers seemed merely to repeat second-hand Judgments which
were familiar critical heirlooms, not at all animated with
fresh perception. Thus James Gray in 1946:
Shaw could not write the well-made play when he first
invaded the theatre; he has made no attempt to learn to
write it in all the first half century of his uninter
rupted activity as a dramatist. Each of his plays is a
tract in dramatic form; the characters are all either
mouthpieces of his preferences or embodiments for his
aversions.^
There were a few useful things said of Shaw. For
example, in The Anatomy of Drama (1946), Alan Reynolds
Thompson answered some of the critics of Shaw:
to make characters debate . . . will not prevent a play
from becoming a comic masterpiece when these characters
talk with the wit and pertinence of Shaw's; and I can
really see no good reason why we should not enjoy such
^"England," in Our Theatre Today: A Composite Hand
book of the Art, Craft, and Management of the Contemporary
Theatre, Edited by Herschel L. Bricker (New York, 1936),
P- 97-
-I fT
On Second Thought, Minneapolis, p. 52.
156
debate In the theatre as well as elsewhere. It may not
forward the plot, but plot has less Importance in comedy
17
than in drama. 1
Francis Fergusson concluded that
Shaw never discovered a publicly acceptable, agreed-on
basis in reality outside his peculiar comic perspective
whereby it might have been consistently and objectively
defined.
John Howard Lawson defended Shaw's practice in Theory and
Technique of Playwriting (19^-9):
It is often said that Shaw uses the drama merely as "a
means to an end." The end to which Shaw dedicates the
drama is the end to which Ibsen proclaimed his allegiance,
and to which all great drama has invariably been dedi
cated— to see reality "free and awake.
These were the most representative and useful of the
things which the lesser known critics said of Shaw from
1920 to 1950. It remains now to examine the contributions
^Berkeley, California.
i Q
The Idea of a Theatre; A Study of Ten Plays; The
Art of the Drama in Changing Perspective (Princeton, New
Jersey, 19^9), p. 1 8 3.
^New York, p. 107*
157
of the most important men of letters during the period.
The major writers on Shaw during this period were Archibald
Henderson (1877-1964), Stark Young (1881-1963)* Edmund
Wilson (1895- ), Joseph Wood Krutch (1893- ), George
Jean Nathan (1882-1958), John Mason Brown (1900- ), John
Gassner (1902-1967)* and Eric Bentley (1916- ). Some
might dispute this list and say that certain names should
be included or deleted. But, granting this, the list
might still be accepted as representative and sufficient
for the present purpose.
One person who wrote on Shaw during this period
deserves special consideration. Archibald Henderson, pro
fessor of mathematics and a scholar in the field of litera
ture as well, became Shaw’s apologist in America. Prom
1905 on he wrote many articles and two major books:
Bernard Shaw: Playboy and Prophet (1932) and the monumental
969-page George Bernard Shaw: Man of the Century (1956).
The latter volume was the summation of a lifetime of
research on Shaw, a work in all media from newspapers to
scholarly Journals and books, and his scholarship is
20
indispensable.
20
For an account of his life's work, see Lucille
Henderson, "Archibald Henderson," The Shaw Review, VII
(September 1964), 95-104.
158
Henderson was a man of rare balance. He was not only
a mathematician, he was also well-read in the humanities.
In fact, Henderson was so well-versed that he tended to
assume that others understood Shaw as well as he did.
Thus, Henderson addressed the public with full confidence
that they would grasp his allusions:
In Bernard Shaw rages the daemonic, half insensate intu
ition of a Blake, with his seer's faculty for inverted
truism; while, the close, detective cleverness of his
ironic paradoxes demonstrates him to be a Becque upon
21
whom has fallen the mantle of a Gilbert.
This statement contains ideas which indicate insight on
the part of Henderson. These are that Shaw, like Blake,
was a romantic mystic, a moralist, and a writer whose
method was inversion, irony, and paradox. But many American
critics failed to grasp these concepts, and as a result,
Shaw criticism was too often a chorus of confusion.
Because of this confusion, Henderson was driven into
the role of popularizer, writing the kind of article that
appears in Sunday supplements; the reduction of Shaw's
most able apologist to a popularizer was a disaster, for
Henderson was forced into mere affirmations of Shaw's
greatness. Toward the other extreme, his training as a
research scholar led him to catalogue vast and important
21
European Dramatists (Cincinnati, 1916), p. 36l.
159
detail about Shaw and his drama. But Henderson did not
use this detail, and sufficiently develop and elucidate
such Insights as he expressed in his statement that Shaw
was a romantic. These insights would have helped many:
for example, those critics who thought Shaw was only a
realist, a rationalist, or an "intellectual." Because he
had the facts at his disposal, Henderson was magnificently
equipped to interpret Shaw to a lost generation of people
who could read but lacked intuition, who could see the
physical drama but could not grasp its significance. These
people were unable to appreciate irony, paradox, and the
necessity of distinguishing between entertainment and an
art work. Unfortunately, Henderson also substituted cata
logues of facts for interpretive criticism, and while every
one must admit the unique value of Henderson's work, it
was no substitute for critical interpretation.
John Mason Brown gave him credit for doing a careful
job: "Mr. Henderson's is not an inspired method. But he
22
does possess the patience of a stamp collector. Brown
resented Henderson, and in his review of Hesketh Pearson's
book, Brown remarked:
Hesketh Pearson must take his place among the welcome
deliverers. Had he in his G.B.S.: A Full Length Portrait
done nothing except deliver Mr. Shaw from Mr. Henderson,
22Two on the Aisle (New York, 1938), p. 293.
160
23
he would have done enough to win the world's gratitude.
. . .Mr. Henderson's Is an Indispensable book— at least
it was until Mr. Pearson's appeared. Its being so only-
made it more infuriating. . . . The trouble was that
Mr. Henderson's love for Mr. Shaw was outdistanced by-
Mr. Henderson's love for himself. Mr. Henderson could
not keep himself out of the narrative. On page after
page the static of his thunderous ego drowned out a
fascinating program. . . . The result was a volume at
24
once invaluable and nauseating.
Another critic, H. I. Brock, attacked Henderson for not
being Shavian enough. In a review of Playboy and Prophet
(1932)* Brock complained that Henderson's style was obscure,
and that his method of "explaining Shaw by translating him
to slow motion seems to be fatal to Shaw. In the process
the essence of Shaw disappears."2^ This critic objected
to the whole concept on which Henderson's book was based.
"But the combination of playboy and prophet seems to be
23New York, 1942.
o II
"G.B.S.: Satan, Saint, and Superman," The Saturday
Review of Literature, XXV (October 24, 1942), 6-7* This
item was reprinted in Dramatis Personae (New York, 1 963)»
pp. 103-104.
2^"George Bernard Shaw Sits Again to His Boswell," The
New York Times, January 15> 1933» Section V, p. 5-
161
far beneath the measure of real worth and dignity of
G. B. S."26
Aside from these two writers, the rest of the critics
accepted Henderson's work as a noteworthy contribution in
an area where any help was to be appreciated. In summary,
Dr. Henderson's work was not only a contribution to scholar
ship, it was also a sign of the critics' frequent failure
to deal adequately with the writer whom Henderson styled
"the man of the century."
Stark Young, rated "without question the finest critic
of acting at work in America today," was drama critic for
The New Republic from 1921 until 1950.2^ He seems to have
been of two minds about Shaw. One side of him tended to
focus on Shaw's weaknesses, and to reject the playwright
as inadequate and inartistic. The other side of him
enjoyed Shavian drama in spite of his expressed dislike.
Therefore, the criticism of Young is characterized by a
pattern of alternation between severe stricture and wonder
ing praise. In 1922 Young condemned Shaw in general for
Back to Methuselah in particular.
2^Brock, p. 5
2^0xford Companion to the Theatre, p. 8 5 2. This
source also records his year as drama critic for The New
York Times from 1924 to 1925*
162
as Shaw has mistrusted the inevitability of art, he has
ignored the inexorability of it. You know that if occa
sion demands he will sacrifice the quality of a scene
to carry a point that he wishes to impress; that he will
insist beyond all tact and taste; . . . though at every
expense of the play's good taste and proportion. But
for this mistrust and this obstinacy— which are really
kinds of egotism— art, which is long, takes its revenge,
exactly as nature. . . . already many of Shaw's plays . . .
pO
are as dead as doornails.
That is, Shaw was no artist because he sacrificed his
drama to his ego and his message. Yet at the end of this
attack Young praised what he liked in the play. Young
dealt with The Showing Up of Blance Posnet in the same ways
he said that he was glad to see the play done, but that
the play had many defects.
Young's reaction to Saint Joan (1924), was character
istic :
When we have seen the performance of Saint Joan at the
Garrick and have had a day or two with the memory of it,
^ 0
we are apt now and again to think it a great play.
2^"Back to Methuselah,1 1 The New Republic, XXX (March
15, 1922) , 80-81.
2^"The Shewing Up of Blance Posnet," The New Republic,
XXXVI (October 31, 1923), 257-
^°"Saint Joan,1 1 The New Republic, XXXVI (January 16,
1924), 205-206.
163
He complained that the drama promised more than it achieved;
then he went on to praise many aspects of the play, and
concluded with a censure, saying that Shaw needed
to know more of what arises out of the wonder and soli
tude of the soul; to know how to be less assertive and
more luminous; and finally to know better what it costs
a fine spirit to be strong, (p. 206)
Young refused to grant the palm of greatness to Saint Joan
in 1924, and in 1936 he still had stringent criticism for
the "cheap witticisms" in the play.^1 He stated:
The defects of the play lie in garrulity and confused
detail, ... in too much personal assertion on the
author’s part, and in a stupid and obvious epilogue.
(p. 198)
Young complained that in Saint Joan "the sense of tragic
pity is deterred" (p. 1 9 8). After having said these harsh
things, he gave some idea of the play's structure, and
then spent the rest of his review in praise of Shaw, ending
with a partial acknowledgment of greatness.
The great thing about Saint Joan is its movement toward
the conception that finally flames in the trial scene.
The body of the play is for this scene lifted to the
plane of greatness, (p. 198)
•^"Salnt Joan: The McClintic's Shaw," The New Republic
LXXXVI (March 2 5, 1936), 1 9 8.
164
Thus, time tempered Young's estimate, and by 1936 he was
more generous to the playwright.
In all of Young's writing about Shaw, there was a
tone of wonder, as If the dramatist had something Incalcu
lable about him. For example, Young said of Pygmalion:
"We wonder if the dramatist . . . did not, through the
genius of him, create plays that are more human and lasting
than he had quite imagined."-^2 Mr. Young wrote in the
same tone of baffled wonder about The Doctor's Dilemma,
which he did not like as a work of art, but he concluded:
I console myself by remembering that from just such com
binations the characteristic quality of the play derives,
and a most enjoyable characteristic quality, and let it
go at that.-^
Young could not help enjoying the plays, but he disliked
Shavian drama, and he gave his reasons in an open letter
to Shaw.
I remember when ... I first encountered your works.
. . . Even then, I remember, I was not taken in. I saw
the verve and delight, the smashing of fronts and top
hats, the knowledge, the courage, the whizz and great
Pygmalion at Guild Theatre," The New Republic,
XLIX (December 1, 1926), 41.
33"The Doctor's Dilemma," The New Republic, LXXX
(December 14, 1927). 97-
165
talk of It all. But I saw also the shock method you
used. . . . Even then I saw . . . the secret blarney.
I saw, also, alas, and just as clearly, that the ego
or the imp was omnipresent. This was a man who would
babble In Zion. There was no tremor, no pulse, no
power of beauty or the shadowy world or strength or joy
^4
that would shut up that self.
Young prefaced his condemnation of Too True To Be
Good with general praise of Shaw.
In Candida, Heartbreak House, Caesar and Cleopatra, and
The Devil's Disciple, we find a scene, an impact of
characters, a dramatic image, that speaks powerfully
35
and unforgettably.
Then he attacked, not just one play, but Shaw's entire
drama practice.
In spite of a scene's implicit length, ... of theatre
practicalities, and even good manners, or of perhaps a
lack of invention in his piece, he has believed he could
peck and preach as long and as much as he chooses.
(p. 273)
Young concluded by stating that Shaw was "like Jeremiah on
a trapeze" (p. 273). The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles
^"Loin du Bal," The New Republic, LXXIV (February 22,
1932), 46.
•^"Little Flowers," The New Republic, LXX (April 20,
1932), 273-
166
met the same fate, for it was condemned with Young's mixed
praise-blame formula.^
These judgments on Saint Joan and the other plays
37
illustrate the dual attitude of Stark Young toward Shaw.
He never lost his sense of wonder and his spontaneous de
light in the drama, and over the years he grew more appre
ciative of Shaw. But Young's predominant attitude was one
of disapproval. He hated Shaw's egotism, and despised
much of the Shavian technique. Young could not deny the
impact of the plays; he did deny the superiority of their
author.
It is a pity that Mr. Edmund Wilson wrote so little
drama criticism, because he had considerable sensitivity
for the plays. He made distinctions between Shaw's primary
and inferior work, and he saw thematic relationships among
the plays, a feat few critics duplicated. He penetrated
Shaw's irony and humor, asserted that Shaw was an artist,
36"The Simpleton,1 1 The New Republic, LXXXII (March 6,
1935), 105-
^"Candida," The New Republic, XC (April 21, 1937),
322. "Heartbreak House itself is evidence of decay with
its lack of any organic unity or exciting technique, the
exhibitionistic self-assertion, its futile chatter ..."
"On Revisiting Heartbreak House," The New Republic, XCV
(June 8, 1938), 130. "The Doctor's Dilemma," The New Repub-
lie, CIV (March 24, 1941), 4o4.
167
and complained that some critics of Shaw lacked understand
ing. "I do not see how those critics who have objected to
the Epilogue [in Saint Joan] can really understand what
the play is about."3® In this article he noted Shaw's
defects mercilessly. "In one passage particularly [Saint
Joan] is allowed to rationalize her point of view beyond
all bounds of probability or dramatic propriety" (p. 381).
But Wilson saw importance in Shavian plays:
What is important is the imagination with which [Shaw's
ideasJ are illustrated and the intensity with which they
are expressed. It is these which have really spoken to
us in Shaw. (p. 3 8 1)
Many critics cited Getting Married, not one of Shaw's
better liked plays, as proof that Shaw was a second-class
playwright, but Wilson used the play as an occasion for a
tribute.
You recognize him even in these less lively plays as the
great artist he is, with all the "combination of inevit
ableness and surprise" which is characteristic of the
■30
great composers. ^
^"Bernard Shaw Since the War,1 1 The New Republic,
XXXIX (August 27, 1924), 3 8 1.
^ " Getting Married," The New Republic, LXVI (April 1 5,
1931), 2 3 6.
168
Wilson expressed Impatience with his fellow critics and
accused them of mental laziness:
The critical lack of interest in Shaw's most recent
plays is due, not to the deficiencies of the plays, but
to the general intellectual deadness of the last four
or five years. . . . You found George Jean Nathan, for
example . . . not even taking the trouble to tell his
readers what the serious comedy was about in [The Apple
Cart]
Mr. Wilson complained of critical misinterpretation in 1938.
"One has seen . . . [On the Rocks] called Fascist in the
reviews; but it is really a play about the breakdown of
■ I 41
Fascism. And Wilson gave the critics a lesson in
interpretation:
one can applaud Shaw's art— and admire the flexibility
and courage which allow him at seventy-eight, still main
taining his original principles, to follow them through
to their consequences in contingencies that his philoso
phy had not originally admitted. (p. 270)
^"Post-War Shaw and Pre-War Bennett," The New Repub
lic, LXXI (June 8, 1932), 92.
^■"Bernard Shaw's Latest Phase," The New Republic,
LXXIX (July 18, 193^), 269- Mr. Wilson was thinking of
critics like Otis Fergusson who wrote: "I suppose the thing
is on the fascist side if you are looking for fascist sides."
"On the Rocks," The New Republic, XCV (July 6, 1938), 251*
169
Wilson differed from the majority of critics when he
affirmed that Shaw was primarily an artist:
It has usually been said of Bernard Shaw that he was
primarily not an artist but a promulgator of ideas. . . .
The truth is, I believe, that he is a considerable artist,
but that his ideas— his social philosophy, proper— have
42
always been uncertain and confused.
Edmund Wilson's chief contribution to Shaw studies was his
insistence upon thinking of Shaw as an artist, with an
artist's mode of expression. In effect It was a challenge
to read Shaw with the discipline and open-mindedness that
art demands. Had more critics followed Wilson's lead,
there might have been less confusion about Shaw.
The next critic to be considered, Joseph Wood Krutch,
wrote for the Nation from 1924 to the present, and resembled
in
Archibald Henderson in his wide humanism. J Krutch had
deep concern for the moral Implications of Shaw's drama as
he showed when he wrote of Caesar and Cleopatra:
2jo
"Bernard Shaw at Eighty," Atlantic Monthly, CLXI
(February 1928), 1 9 8.
^Krutch was "a critic of the drama— and the drama as
literature— rather than a reporter of the playhouses." So
noted Thomas Quinn Curtiss in The Oxford Companion to the
Theatre, p. 444.
170
If . . . Shaw said in effect, Antony "cooling a harlot's
lust" is a greater man than this Caesar reincarnated as
a Shavian superman, and if the poet who painted him as
supremely great because he had the weakness to prefer
his pleasure to his destiny is a greater poet than the
one who celebrates the self-abnegation of Caesar, then
aesthetes are right and the business of the poet is to
tickle the senses and to flatter the vanity of his audi
ence. But if these things are not true then Shakespeare
must be the lesser artist and not he but Shaw the true
voice of England.
Obviously this was nonsense. Shakespeare's intention was
to illustrate the destruction of Antony's greatness by a
fatal flaw.
Another example of Krutch's preoccupation with Shaw's
moral thrust was the analysis of "Androcles as a Religious
Farce. Krutch was helpful in his recognition of Shaw's
46
romanticism, and the thematic trend of the plays. For
example, he saw that Shaw was becoming pessimistic in Too
True to Be Good, and he imagined the playwright saying that
^"Better than Shakespeare," Nation, CXX (April 29,
1925), 500.
^Nation, CXXI (December 9, 1925), 6 8 9.
^ "Papa Shaw," Nation, CXXV (December 14, 1927), 690.
171
My answers were only a little less inadequate than those
of others. You have failed, I have failed, all of us
47
have failed. Mankind is damned.
Though Krutch did not like Too True to Be Good, he was
impressed by what he called "the drama of Bernard Shaw"
(p. 478) which he indicated by the title of his article,
"Alas, Poor Yorick" (p. 477)* Krutch believed that Shaw
was a forerunner of modern drama but could not write the
48
thing he advocated. At any rate, the later plays Shaw
wrote were not acceptable to either the critics or the
public.
The best expression of Krutch's estimate of Shaw was
a review of Candida which answered the ancient allegation
that Shaw was an ephemeral propagandist who could not
create character.
All the better pieces remain too obviously actable to
be dismissed as mere pamphlets interesting only in so
far as the ideas remain fresh. There is something else
^7"Alas, Poor Yorick," Nation, CXXIV (April 20, 1932),
478.
|i O
"... audiences were ready to accept plays written
from the Shavian point of view. The next step was . . .
to write the plays. . . . Prom Saint Joan on that is exactly
what he attempted to do." "The Shavian Dilemma," Nation,
CLXI (September 11, 1935)* 293-
172
in them, even if that something is not the flesh-and-
blood reality of the supremely great dramatists. Shaw
knows the tricks of his trade. If he cannot quite
create living human beings, he can provide something
better than mere talking machines to reel off his ideas.
Each of his characters not only has a point of view but
also theatrical concreteness. The puppets not only
speak but act; they have gestures, and traits, and pecu
liarities. And for stage purposes that is the next best
thing to living character. His personages may have
little life outside the play, but they have great liveli-
ness within it. ^
Krutch's criticism showed appreciation for Shaw's accom
plishment, not irritation for his limitations. He classi
fied the playwright as great, although not "supremely
great," basing his judgment on the idea that Shaw's charac
ters had stage life, but "little life outside the play."
However, it would seem that the stage life, the life within
the play is the one that counts. Many of Shakespeare's
characters would not pass Mr. Krutch's test, which is too
vague and general to be meaningful. Therefore, in spite
of superficial praise, the assumptions upon which Krutch1s
criticisms were based made an unfavorable judgment on
Shaw's drama inevitable. As proof of this, Mr. Krutch
attacked Heartbreak House because "a pot-pourri of ideas
^"Candida," Nation, CXLIV (March 27, 1937)* 363-
173
RO
is not the same thing as a synthesis of moods.' In this
same article he censured "Shaw's persistent tendency to
rely upon farce and caricature to make his discourse
actable" (p. 5 6 6). When he found apparent contradiction
in Shaw, Krutch concluded that it was impossible to under
stand the dramatist's doctrine:
Always at the very moment when he has proved conclusively
that the world can be understood in terms of rational
materialism and in these terms alone he begins to see
visions. . . . Turning suddenly upon those of little
faith, he proclaims anew the absolute, the immutable,
the eternal and the non-rational. . . . This is . . .
perhaps, the reason why one is never quite sure what
the doctrine of the most doctrinaire of English play
wrights really is. (p. 5 6 7)
This was admission of confusion. Such a generalization
demanded full and extensive development, for to accept it
without qualification would lead to critical bankruptcy in
the interpretation of Shaw's plays. Unfortunately, Krutch
did not follow through and write the commentary his chal-
lenging statement demanded. Mr. Krutch was an influential
critic, but his work on Shaw was meager and superficial.
50"Heartbreak House," Nation, CLXVI (May 14, 1938)*
566-5 6 7.
-^Eric Bentley's Bernard Shaw: 1856-1950 (New York,
1957) was written as a corrective for such critical inade
quacy and confusion. See pp. xi-xx.
174
George Jean Nathan could have done brilliant work on
Shaw. For example, using Shaw's style and attitude toward
sex as evidence, he demonstrated that the playwright was
CO
"still the romantic he was when he was a boy." Nathan
was intolerant of Shaw's lesser work, as shown by the excoxi-
ation of Geneva.^ However, he acknowledged "Shaw's posi
tion as the greatest dramatist in the English-speaking
theatre of his time."^ Nathan's general attitude toward
Shaw was expressed when he said that
Gratuitously to analyze his plays too closely is to look
the gift horse in the mouth, for they have given their
recipients some of the happiest hours the stage has
afforded.^
Nathan rejected the necessity of criticism because the play
gave pleasure. Such a stand was magnificent and Johnsonian
in its independence, but it was not useful to anyone else.
^2"Shaw and the Ogre," American Mercury, XVII (July
1929), 370-373-
^"Mind and Matter," Newsweek, XV (February 12, 1940),
38.
c4
3 "George Bernard Shaw," American Mercury, LVII (Febru
ary 1944), 235.
•^"George Bernard Shaw," American Mercury, LVII (Febru
ary 1944), p. 2 3 6.
175
He was also independent enough to see Shaw's work with a
mind unclouded by any previous critical judgments of Shaw,
and in fact Nathan quarreled with the critics. "[Shaw]
gives them what they say he can't do, sentiment, wisdom
and mature drama.But Nathan's weakness was his ten
dency to substitute unsupported affirmations of greatness
and witticisms for analysis and criticism. He remarked,
for instance, that "Aristophanes was the Barnum of his day;
Shakespeare the Bailey of his; and Shaw has been the Ring-
ling of his."-^ Therefore, in spite of great promise,
Mr. Nathan's critical contributions about Shaw have been
disappointing both in quantity and quality.
John Mason Brown is practically a household name.
Since he began as a drama critic for Theatre Arts Monthly,
r Q
"he has made a reputation as an acute drama critic.
Hence it is interesting that during this period Mr. Browii's
remarks constitute a defense and justification of Shaw as
a dramatist. That is, the terms in which he wrote of
Shavian drama were like answers to the usual indictments
^"More on G.B.S.," American Mercury, LXX (March 1950),
312.
-^"More on G.G.S.," American Mercury, LXX (march 1950),
312.
The Oxford Companion to the Theatre, p. 102.
176
of Shaw. It was as if he conducted a running debate with
the opposition. For instance, he defended Shaw's objec
tivity when he wrote that "Mr. Shaw keeps himself out of
the picture. He does not turn monologist and go off on
tangents.And Brown continued with the quiet and simple
assertion that "in Saint Joan Mr. Shaw shows himself to be
a dramatist" (p. 464).
Brown accused the public and the critics of failing
Shaw because they were lazy.
[The world] wants to be spared the rigors of thought and
the embarrassments of truth. It prefers to have its
beliefs unshaken, its intelligence unquickened. Too fre
quently what it believes in is only what it has stopped
thinking about.
He derided the critics' attempt to classify Shaw because
fil
Shavian "drama defies traditional classification." And
he celebrated Shaw because Man and Superman "was the most
-^"Salnt Joan," Theatre Arts Monthly, XX (June 1936),
463- This article was reprinted in Two on the Aisle: Ten
Years of the American Theatre in Performance (New York,
1 938), pp. 102-106.
^"Straight From the Lion's Mouth," The Saturday Re
view of Literature, XXX (January 11, 1947)* 26.
"Progress and the Superman," The Saturday Review of
Literature, XXX (November 1, 1947)> 30.
177
original and delectable comedy to be seen in New York"
(p. 31). Shaw suffered by the inevitable comparison with
Shakespeare.^2 But when the Irishman died Brown wrote an
eloquent tribute which summed up his feeling about Shaw:
I . . . would have only pity for a world which could not
be touched by Candida, melted by Androcles and the Lion,
amused by Man and Superman, . . . quickened by Caesar and
Cleopatra, and stirred by Saint Joan. Better than
Shakespeare Shaw may not have been. Different he palpably
was. Yet that this was the most fecund genius to have
turned to the theatre since Shakespeare1s time seems
safe from challenge. ^
Brown's work was a sound contribution to the understanding
of Shaw because with rare perception and great balance of
judgment, this critic gave a useful account of the plays.
He had enough objectivity to know that his own limitations
and the rules of traditional drama were not to be rigidly
imposed on Shaw's plays, and he was aware that Shaw had
been misunderstood and that much work needed to be done
toward a better description and understanding of Shavian
drama. Brown's criticism was a step in that direction.
"0 Eastern Star! Shaw and Shakespeare's Antony and
Cleopatra," The Saturday Review of Literature, XXX (December
20, 19^7) * 22.
^^"G.B.S., Headmaster to the Universe," The Saturday
Review of Literature, XXXII (November 18, 1950), 13*
178
John Gassner (1902-1967) was a distinguished professor,
editor and critic. Essentially he was a partisan of Shaw
because Gassner's work constitutes one long tribute to
the Shavian canon. In 1946 for example he wrote that
only Shaw in our time has been able to write comic fugues
which never gave the mind and spirit rest until the final
phrase Is uttered and the curtain of the last act is
brought down . . . before him, only two playwrights—
Moliere and Aristophanes— managed to exhibit the same
64
talent.
This was the tenor of most of Gassner1s articles on Shaw,
but his main contribution to Shavian studies was the Shaw
6s
section in his book Masters of the Drama. ^ The treatment
of Shaw is done In a style so direct and unpretentious that
Gassner's deep insight and solid scholarship are unobtru
sive and scarcely noticeable. Some recent writers, in
fifi
fact, have found it easy to disparage Gassner. However,
^"The Theatre Arts," Forum, CVI (September 1946), 275*
65New York, 1940, pp. 575-628.
fifi
Richard Hornby, In "Which Brustein at Yale," Tulane
Drama Review, X (Summer 1 9 6 6), refered to once "over-lightly
critics . . . like John Gassner" (p. 277)* and to "Gassner's
fatuous summarizing that passes for criticism" (p. 2 7 8).
179
Masters of the Drama was well received at the time of publi
cation, and it has been frequently reprinted. The excel
lence of such sections as the one on Saint Joan (pp. 611-
612), his perceptive analysis of Shaw's later drama, and
the treatment of the Individual dramas Is readily apparent.
Gassner1s work In general has many passages useful to
students j for example:
Profundity Is not, however, a mere matter of Intellect.
Although as George Jean Nathan remarked, some of Shaw's
plays are as "unemotional as mushrooms," his work is
rooted in feeling. It reflects a humanitarianism that
is as emotional as anything in the drama, and there is
a noble passion in it. (p. 595)
This dissertation has shown how few critics were able to
perceive what Gassner pointed out so sensibly and even
though Gassner's estimate of Shaw may seem merely common
sense, it is precisely in this most valuable. For Gassner's
evaluation of Shaw was characterized by a great deal of
Johnsonian level-headedness, unspectacular but solid.
Though no one passage could be termed brilliant, Gassner's
work on Shaw was a distinguished contribution to
scholarship.
British-born Eric Bentley is one of the best known
names in drama criticism today. He has been a translator
of Brecht, an editor of drama anthologies, and a drama
critic for The New Republic, Harpers and numerous other
180
journals including the Tulane Drama Review. In 1946 he
published a study of contemporary dramatists, The Playwright
as Thinker, a volume in which he devoted considerable atten-
Cry
tion to Shaw. As an outgrowth of that book he wrote
Bernard Shaw (194-7)
In Bernard Shaw, Bentley essayed to bring order out
of what he felt was a chaos of critical estimate of the
playwright.
I ask myself: if Shaw is a simple author, why did so
many people feel obliged to give their opinions of him,
why did their opinions differ so widely from each other,
and why were so many of them complacently shallow? I
found blame, but most of it incoherent and scurrilous.
Everyone had certainly had his say about Shaw. (p. xii)
Bentley's book was based on the assumption that an under
standing of Shaw's thought was a key to the themes and
structures of the plays. To correct this situation, Bentley
designed his analysis to deal with fundamental and specific
questions:
This book asks, not: what does Shaw think? but: to
what end does he think? what kind of a thinker is he?
Not: what plays has he written? nor yet, primarily:
^New York.
68
New York. I am using the more easily obtainable
1957 edition.
181
just how good are they? but what kind of plays? what
sort of an artist have we in Shaw? Not: what are the
facts of his life? what anecdotes are told by him and
about him? but: what kind of a man is he? what is the
nature and upshot of his career? (p. xx)
By addressing himself to these points, Bentley made a
considerable contribution to Shaw studies, and has proven
that Shavian drama demands serious thought and the most
careful scholarship. For his statement on the scope of his
book is a veritable challenge to reinterpret the entire
body of Shaw's work. Bentley went on to issue another
challenge with his remark that Shaw "has achieved a kind of
prestige but has not in the least been understood" (p.xxiv).
The book, Bernard Shaw, particularly the chapter on Shavian
theatre (pp. 93-182) has been an addition to the criticism
and scholarship that Bentley called for. In his chapter on
Shaw's theatre, for example, Bentley has formulated a valu
able handbook to the plays. It Is a chapter full of such
useful points as his comment that the conflict in Saint
Joan Is "irreconcilable" because "the irresistible force of
her genius meets the Immovable object of social order"
(p. 69).
Bentley's Bernard Shaw dominated its area not only
because it was the only book in its time which treated
Shaw's work seriously and at length, but also because It
was full of rich ideas that every student of Shaw will find
useful and necessary.
From this account of the attitudes of both the minor
and the major critics, particularly Henderson, Young,
Wilson, Nathan, Brown, Gassner and Bentley, it may be seen
that the plays were generally respected as challenging in
theme and rewarding as entertainment. The feeling was that
Shaw had produced a mature drama, and the critics appreci
ated the compliment to their intelligence. Some writers
felt that Shaw had gone too far in the direction of intel
lectuality and neglected sentiment and theatricality to the
extent that his characters were bloodless puppets, long-
windedly debating Shavian propaganda. They felt that Shaw's
passion for message caused an over-emphasis on discussion
and the virtual destruction of plot. Shaw's defenders
minimized these charges and declared that his drama should
not be rejected for its formal defects, but it should be
enjoyed for its virtues. In general, the favorable critics
felt that Shaw was the best English dramatist since
Shakespeare.
CONCLUSION
Shavian drama was a source of controversy from the
first American production in 1894. The critics gave the
playwright credit for being a clever entertainer, and the
initial reaction was one of mixed delight and confusion,
a confusion which stemmed from the unusual elements of
Shavian drama itself, for it was full of contradictions,
the unconventional and iconoclastic; it had intuitionalism
juxtaposed with rationalism; it was at once religious and
skeptical, gay and puritanic, complex and simple, light
and challenging. Shaw's drama was disturbing because it
seemed to defy the rules of theatre in its neglect of
action, its loquacity, its contempt for sentiment and melo
drama, its tendency to use caricatures for characters, and
its frequent subordination of theatre to message. The
opponents of Shaw denounced him as a mountebank and an
irresponsible clown unworthy the name of dramatist. The
proponents of the new dramatist hailed him as a vivifying
force in a theatre moribund in melodrama and debilitated
in intelligence. Practically everyone had to take a posi
tion on Shaw, and these pronouncements provoked more dis
cussion in an almost endless cycle of critical wrangling.
183
184
Out of all this controversy emerged fame for Shaw and
a fanatical following, a veritable cult of Shavians like
Archibald Henderson, Arnold Daly, H. L. Mencken, and numer-
our others. As a result, Shaw's plays became fashionable,
and a sign of the intellectual, so much so that some critics
protested Shavians as a claque. Thus, though there was a
Shaw boom from 1903 to 1915> It was by no means a unanimous
critical acceptance, for in spite of the popular success of
the plays, many critics continued to question the artistry
and permanence of the drama. This situation continued
through the twenties, and even Saint Joan, an obvious
masterpiece, failed to settle the question. However, by
the 1920's through the 1940's the older Shaw plays not only
held the stage successfully, but season after season, they
dominated the theatre of New York.
The plays that Shaw wrote in his later period, every
thing after Saint Joan (1924), were not successfulj yet
these plays were received with tolerance and appreciation
because the critics considered inferior work by Shaw inter
esting and generally superior to the offering of contempo
rary writers. The dramatist's status came to be that of a
grand old man of letters who was to be venerated because
he had written with wisdom and humor. Through the years
there was a genuine growth in critical maturity and under
standing of the plays. The reviewers analyzed the charac
ters more thoughtfully and affirmed that Shaw's ideas were
185
not a detriment to drama but a source of delight and an
Integral part of the plays. Nevertheless, the detractors
of Shaw continued to repeat the charges that had been made
about Shavian drama from the beginning. Because of this
and the lingering skepticism about the lasting quality of
his work, Shaw's drama was never completely accepted.
This study of Shaw's critical reception has implica
tions also for anyone who would produce the plays. The
dramas have shown that they are appropriate vehicles for
first-class actors, but they positively demand strong
leads like Richard Mansfield, Arnold Daly, Katharine Cornell,
Orson Welles and Maurice Evans. To attempt any Shaw play
without an appropriate cast is to court disaster.
Finally, the response to the productions has demon
strated the existence of a ready-made market or audience
of loyal Shavians who have been willing to support a play
simply because Shaw wrote it. Shaviophiles have shown
themselves to be a fastidious, discriminating audience,
apt to know the text and quick to discern weakness of inter
pretation, but generous in their appreciation of an artistic
performance. The many productions of Shaw plays, 1895-1950,
the size, interest, and variety of popular response taught
critics and public to expect a Shaw play to be an intense
experience in the theatre.
The critical reception of G. Bernard Shaw in New York
was a struggle between melodrama and a challenging new
186
drama of Ideas. Shavian drama was victorious, for the more
popular plays proved to be ephemeral, and both critics and
public came to accept the work of Shaw with greater pleasure,
understanding and respect. By creating an atmosphere
wherein a mature drama of universal significance was toler
able to American audiences, Shaw helped to prepare the
conditions necessary for the rise of a great American drama
such as that of O'Neil, of Miller, of Williams, or of some
unheralded writer to come.
APPENDIX
187
188
ANDROCLES AND THE LION
A little tailor befriends a lion by removing a thorn
from a pad. Later the tailor is thrown to the lions
during the Roman persecution of the Christians and the
animal which the tailor had befriended saves the life of
his benefactor and convinces the Emperor that Christians
can be useful members of society. The play is a wry
study of religious motivation.
THE APPLE CART
In this satire on constitutional monarchy the King
of England brings his ministers to heel by threatening to
resign his throne and run for prime minister. He demon
strates that democracies are really run by the strong man.
ARMS AND THE MAN
This is a combination of bedroom farce and antiwar
satire that portrays a mercenary soldier who takes refuge
in the boudoir of a girl who has romanticized war and her
soldier fiance. She falls in love with the intruder as
she and most of the other characters take a more realistic
and honest view of both war and life in general.
BACK TO METHUSELAH
This is not one play but a series of plays which are
a rewriting of the Bible. In this version of the scrip
tures, Shaw traces the history of the world from the gar
den of Eden to an apocalyptic vision of the future of man-
189
kind.
CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA
Caesar is portrayed as a wise and kindly old gentle
man vainly endeavoring to teach Cleopatra how to rule
herself and her country effectively.
CANDIDA
A housewife has to choose between her husband and a
youthful, poetic lover. She chooses her husband because
she feels that he has the greater need of her.
CAPTAIN BRASSBOUND'S CONVERSION
A wronged foundling finds himself the master of the
destinies of his oppressors. But he in turn is converted
by a masterful woman who shows him that his quest for
justice was full of illusion. Shaw inverted the myth of
the revenge-seeking romantic hero.
THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE
Dick Dudgeon who fancies himself as an outlaw and
opponent of religion finds that he is a highly moral,
almost puritanical individual. The minister in the story
finds that he prefers action and warfare to Holy writ.
THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA
In this satire on the power and incompetence of the
medical profession, a doctor must decide whether or not
to save the life of a great but unscrupulous artist. His
choice is complicated by his love for the artist's wife.
190
FANNY'S FIRST PLAY
A young girl writes a play about English family life.
Her father stages the Shavian play to the confusion of
the professional critics who have been invited to the
performance. Their response and objections to Shavian
drama are satirized and refuted.
GENEVA
Shaw's post World War I disillusion and cynicism
are seen in this portrait of the confrontation of the
futile League of Nations and the dictators of the fascist
countries. The nations of the world are shown to be no
more effective in governing themselves than constitutional
government. And the playwright's old solution, the
strong man, is no longer possible because the dictators
are pictured as merely more effective fools and charla
tans.
GETTING CARRIED
The parties to a marriage balk at the last moment
when they begin to consider their liabilities under English
law. The characters are all given an opportunity to de
bate the state of matrimony.
IN GOOD KING CHARLES'S GOLDEN DAYS
Set in 1680, Charles isi.another version of Caesar.
He is a wily politician whose primary goal in life is to
rule well. The comedy lies in the Shavianizing of the
191
Charles of history.
HEARTBREAK HOUSE
This play concerns a strange old sea captain and his
two married daughters. Their old mansion, Heartbreak
House, is a symbol of England and the characters and their
actions are an allegory on England's position in the mo
dern world. Shaw's theme is that the state is in danger
of destruction because the people in it are irresponsible
and do nothing but fritter away their lives in futile
tasks.
HOW HE LIED TO HER HUSBAND
This is a one act farce which is a parody of Candida.
It is the same triangle, but this time the husband is
aware of the poet's romantic interest in his wife. The
poet is shocked to find that both husband and wife have
been using him and consider his passion a matter of pres
tige, a compliment to the wife's beauty.
JOHN BULL'S OTHER ISLAND
Two civil engineers, Broadbent an Englishman, and
Doyle an Irishman go to Ireland to develop a recreation
center. Keegan, a defrocked priest, turns out to be more
religious than the representatives of the establishment.
Broadbent relieves his friend of an old and unwanted girl
friend. The play ends with a discussion of economics.
192
MAJOR BARBARA
The daughter of a wealthy munitions maker becomes a
major in the Salvation Army so that she may improve the
lot of the poor. But she learns that her ministry merely
prolongs the status quo. She learns that her father who
makes weapons is more productive of economic good and
general welfare than the organization which purports to
uplift mankind. Because of this, she leaves the Salvation
Army and joins forces with her father.
MAN AND SUPERMAN
Shaw1s thesis is that man and woman are helpless vic
tims of the life force which dictates the mating urge.
Tanner tries to flee Ann but cannot escape. Thus the Su
perman is to be produced from favorable breeding.
MAN OF DESTINY
This is a one act play which Shavianizes Napoleon.
The little corporal comes out with a combination of the
characteristics of Bluntschli, Caesar and Joan of Arc. He
is the wise and superior intelligence who is also a man of
action. While he is not completely the master of woman,
he is wise enough not to contest a field where total vic
tory is impossible.
MISALLIANCE
Set in an English country house, the story concerns a
manufacturer of underwear whose daughter is to marry the
son of a noble Lord. A Shaw woman, Lina, crash lands on
193
the property bringing with her a handsome young man whom
the manufacturer's daughter decides to marry. Most of the
men fall in love with the aviatrix; she selects the noble
Lord's son and promises to fly off with him.
MRS. WARREN'S PROFESSION
Mrs. Warren's profession was that of prostitution.
She was a madam who ran a successful chain of high priced
establishments. Her daughter, Vivie, was given the benefit
of a fine education at the University with the proceeds of
the‘ operation. The plot consists of Vivie's progressive
realization of the source of her wealth and the moral
stance she adopts after she learns the truth about her
mother and the society in which she lives.
ON THE ROCKS
Shaw's follow up and sequel to Heartbreak House which
he portrayed as the ship of state going on the rocks if
those capable of rule failed to exercise their responsi
bility. The play shows England as utterly incapable of
avoiding diaster or going "on the rocks." The prime
minister, for example, can only employ stop gap measures
in the face of social unrest. And the common people whose
grievances need redress are equally incapable of thought
or effective action.
THE PHILANDERER
The philanderer is the normal male who wishes to have
194
the affection of women without sacrificing his independence
to get it. In this play Shaw inverts the plot of Man and
Superman and shows the hero escaping the clutches of two
women who try to domesticate him but finally realize that
this male is beyond them.
PYGMALION
In a modernized version of the Greek legend, a pro
fessor tries to make an English lady of a flower girl.
He succeeds not only in making her measure up to social
standards, but he sharpens her awareness of her indivi
duality to the point where she becomes a mature person,
independent and self reliant.
SAINT JOAN
The familiar story of Saint Joan is Shavianized. The
heroine is another Shaw woman, an embodiment of the life
force who tries to improve her fellowman too quickly, and
she is martyred because she is an embarrassment to the
vested interests and because she is too good for her time.
THE SIMPLETON OF THE UNEXPECTED ISLES
A clergyman, the personification of British respec
tability, lends himself to a utopian experiment designed
to unify all men through a fusion of the best qualities
of East and West. The experiment fails and the majority
of people in the world are destroyed as useless in an
apocalyptic vision of judgment.
195
TOO TRUE TO BE GOOD
Aubrey, a would-be burglar, is foiled in his attempt
to rob a young woman of her jewels when his victim per
suades him to run away with her and live on the sale of
the jewels. The hero of this later version of The Devil1s
Disciple finds that in spite of his attempt to live a
life of crime, he is an incurable moralist and born prea
cher. Aubrey seems to represent Shaw in a mood of des
pair, a preacher without faith or hope.
YOU NEVER CAN TELL
An impecunious dentist becomes infatuated with the
eccentric daughter of his wealthy landlord. The girl
marries "the defeated Duellist of Sex" before he can re
cover his balance. The play is another Shavian commentary
on marriage.
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Creator Keough, Lawrence Christopher (author)

Core Title The Critical Reception Of The Major Plays Of G. Bernard Shaw Performed Innew York: 1894-1950

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program English

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Literature, Modern,OAI-PMH Harvest

Format dissertations (aat)

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Kastor, Frank S. (committee chair), McElderry, Bruce R. (committee member), Stahl, Herbert M. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-691516

Unique identifier UC11361998

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Legacy Identifier 6909027.pdf

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Document Type Dissertation

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Rights Keough, Lawrence Christopher

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