The evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1907-1908, 1907-07-13

Barbara
John BulFs Other Island and Major
Barbara" BY Bernard Shaw. Published
by ~Brentano's. New York.
One other play, besides the two named
In the title, is included in the book. That
Is the one-act comedy How He Lied tC
Her Husband"
Most of Shaw's plays have appeared in
print, at least on this side of the water.
before they have been put upon the stage.
The reverse Is the case with the three OF
this book. They have all been acted, and
hence are more or less familiar to all who
follow the affairs of the theatre.
John Bulls Other island was written
in 1904 at the request, Mr.. Shaw says. OF
William B. Yeats, the Irish poet, and was
performed with a considerable degree OF
success both in ireland and in England
Its fate in this country, where it was seal
for two weeks at the Garrick Theatre,
New York, in the fall of 1905, was sum
mary and decisive failure. AS much as
to anything else this was due 10 the
plsy's. subject, which. being political ana
economical and local to Britain, did not
appeal to Americans.
Major Barbara was acted in LONDON
in the season of 1866, with Miss Annie
Russell in the title role. Miss Russell mas
on several occasions threatened to appear
in the play in this country, but thus rar
has spared us.
How He Lied to Her Husband was
written for Arnold DAILY after that en-
thuslastic apostle of Shaw had mace MS
first unfortunate venture in Mrs. war
ren's Profession" and, having incurred
along with his anthor. a not altogether de-
served opprobrium at the instigation or
the inexplicitly pious and stupid New
York preas, was obliged to have recourse
to vaudeville. He toured the vaudeville
theatres with success in the little play,
comparatively unhampered.' as is
author says, by the press censorship OF
the theatre, or by that sophistication OF
the audience through press suggestion'
from which ! suffer more. perhaps inan
any other author. Vaudeville authors are
fortunately, unknown. The audiences see
what the play contains and what the
actor can do, not what the papers nave
told him to expect. Success under sucn
circ umstances had a value both for Mr..
DAILY and myself. which did something TO
console us for the very unsavory moooing
which the New York press organized
for u.s."
How He Lied TO Her Husband though
an unpretentious sketch, is, of the three
in the present book. the one best caicu-
lated to please an American audience. 1t
to do with the everlasting theatrical
triangle Of husband, wife and lover, but
it's treatment, If not particularly human,
as its author would have us believe, ID
novel and interesting. Instead or making
husband a Jealous Othello, SHAW re-
veals him as particularly well pleased wnen
an ardent and poetic young man makes
love to his wife. This being regarded as
open hattery 10th to the wife and him
self. the husband is represented as be-
Indignantly wrathful when the
man tries to lie out of the situa-
ton and persuade the husband that he
wasn't in love at all, but was inditmg
erotic lyrics TO some impersonal divin-
Ity. 1t is the typical upside To- and
not at all Unreasonable attitude, which
Shaw delights to assume in relation to the
conventions of literature and life.
The other two plays, being more or less
oolemical, not to say didactical in spots,
are much less entertaining.
John Bulls Other Island is an EXPOSE
ton and contrast of the Irish and the
1t brings into discussion the
of home rule, and the reasons,
principally a dreamful inability to act, for
Irish backwardness at home, and for
progress principally in the Eng
lishman's cheerful b-umptiousness, lack of
imagination and humor. social confidence,
and dissatisfaction and suficiency. The
play proceeds for two acts in an amusing
I'll LII nv 0CNClOPo III ioAhNi 1AN
some discursiveness through the remain
ing two. The extravaganza of farcical
situation, as In the incident of the pig In
the automobile, helps some, but to Ameri-
cans the play, IL seen on the stage at
least, could not but seem stupid. To read
1t, If one is interested in it's subject, is to
be much less bored.
In Major Barbara" Shaw's thesis is
the one objectionable sin ia poverty.
He illustrates 1t in the contrast of con-
ditions confronted and met by the Saliva
ton Army and conditions supplied by a
successful business concern monopolizing
manufacture of munitions of war. The
contrast is all in the favor of the bust
ness concern which allows its employees
a comfortable living wage and prevents,
so far as 1t can, the poverty to cope with
which the Salvationists are obliged to de-
pend upon the contributions from the men
who own the gunpowder factories and
the whiskey distilleries.
As In MRS. Warren's Profession the
idea is that the cure of most Of the ills
of society is in the payment of decent
living wages to the so-called lower classes,
and there is also insistence, as in Wild
overs Houses upon the tainted identity
of wealth whether applied ultimately with
charitable intent or not, by the whiskey
d~istiller or the Salvationist.
There are several places in the play
where the Shaviar humor finds most
laughable expression. But the dull spots
are not few, and the absurdness OF the
situations. particularly that Of the rela-
lions of Understand to his family outlined
In the first act. does not tend to stimulate
interest or arrest a respectful attention.
Miss Russell MAY have done a good deal
with the nobleman's daughter, turned
= - ANl tAAta tstv-4nd hack
again by a proof of the ethical futility or
II all, for she is a charming actress and
the part has some possibilities, but 1t IS
very doubtful If she could interest an
American public very much in the play
itself.
Both of the principal plays are intro
duced by essays In which the themes OF
the comedies are outlined and Expanded
The publishers say these essays are
vivid and it is probably our own OBJ
tuseness that made us find them exceed
ingly dull. :,
The book is the least important OF all
the books OF plays Shaw has yet given US.
"The' Master of Stair"
THE Master of Stair BY Marjorie
Bowen. Mcclure. Phillips & Co, New
York.
Plot and COUNTER plot fill the pages OF
this book to overlooking. Jacobite In
trisuers and the power behind the throne
of William OF Orange pit their strength
- -...A 49, R~roAnva ~