Apple Cart, Too True to Be Good, On the Rocks, and The Millionairess
Regular price
€17.50
14 days return policy
Shipping & Delivery
A01=George Bernard Shaw
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_George Bernard Shaw
automatic-update
B01=Matthew Yde
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=DD
COP=United Kingdom
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_poetry
Language_English
PA=Available
Price_€10 to €20
PS=Active
softlaunch
Product details
- ISBN 9780198809944
- Weight: 364g
- Dimensions: 130 x 197mm
- Publication Date: 01 Jul 2021
- Publisher: Oxford University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
The four dramas in this volume are some of George Bernard Shaw's most interesting plays. They stretch from 1929 to 1935 and coincide with the Great Depression, the intensification of the crisis of democracy that began after the war, and the rise of totalitarianism, all of which find expression in these plays. They also signal the beginning of an important new phase in Shaw's writing, one marked especially by the development of two new Shaw genres: the political extravaganza and the political allegory.
The Apple Cart (1929) marked Shaw's return to playwriting after the long hiatus that followed Saint Joan (1923). The Apple Cart is perhaps the most pointed critique of parliamentary democracy in the entire Shavian canon.
Too True to Be Good (1931) is another 'political extravaganza', with the opening stage direction -- 'The patient is sleeping heavily. Near her, in the easy chair, sits a Monster' ---signaling that Shaw is advancing further into uncharted dramaturgical territory. He began writing shortly before his trip to the Soviet Union and finished the play and wrote the preface after his return. In the preface Shaw asserts that the USSR is a new Catholic church.
The dark mood continues in Shaw's next play, On the Rocks (1933) which Shaw subtitled, 'a political comedy'. It is reminiscent of The Apple Cart in that it is sharply focused on British politics and set in the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street during the economic depression of the 1930s.
Shaw started writing The Millionairess in 1934 and finished it in 1935. On the surface, it is a simple comedy, and if not for the preface we might acquiesce to Shaw's assessment that the play 'oes not pretend to be anything more than a comedy of humorous and curious contemporary characters such as Ben Jonson might write'. Yet the preface appended to the play is entirely about leadership and declaims at great length on Mussolini and Hitler.
Matthew Yde is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of New Mexico, USA. He specialises in modern and contemporary theatre and drama, particularly in relation to politics, philosophy, and religion. His most recent work includes Bernard Shaw and Totalitarianism (Palgrave Macmillan).
