The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-03-19
From the New York Sun.


 From the New York Sun. xe
 4 COLLECTIVE title for his three
 A newly published plays might be X "The Shewing-up of Bernard Shaw" Never before has the real Shaw appeared so free from disguise as a fiib-l bertigibbet, scarecrow, poseur and im- moralist as in this volume, which cop- tains 'The Doctors Dilemma" "Getting Married and "The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet" And the real Shaw turns out to be a kindly, humorous old fellow. reactionary chock full of old-fashioned notions and fairly exuding sentiment of the approved English variety From a too long residence in London he has lost his irresponsibility, his Celtic sense of dis proportion; no longer for him are the joys of brilliant exaggeration and gilt tering half truth. Shaw is become Brit ish, a man of soggy certitudes, Chester ton has outparadoxed him, Wells plays the role of Macchiavelli in better tune. Sad ending for man who might have become the ghost of Samuel Butler. He is rich, famous and fribble; and like all professional socialists when the test of selfishness is applied his earth theory explodes with the roar of pin-pricixed bladder. In a word, Shaw is at last a normal human being.
 And how delightfully."- mediaeval are his opinions. In "The Doctors Dilemma" he mocks at vaccination, vivisection, the virtue of antitoxins, the viciousness of drugs, and votes for women. It sounds like the eighteenth century. He, caring more for drainpipe than a cathedral. naturally despises the artist and there fore hastens to present him as the typi- cal fascinating scamp, as seen through the eyes of mid-Victorian fiction writers. MT. Podsnap could not have assumed a more philistine attitude. You suspect in Getting Married that MT. Shaw has been reading too much Eugene Br1eux, but this is not the case. Brieux, for whose plays Shaw has written preface, deals with unpleasant actualities; his con- temporary across the channel never does. Shaw believes in marriage, approvingly pats St. Paul on the shoulder, and if he avows the ceremony a makeshift it is because better days are coming. The divorce laws of Great Britain are not in such a muddle as those in the United States, hence Shaw believes they should be. He is hot for easy divorces, a vege- table diet and rigid temperance legisla- ton. No worse puritan and tyrant could be well imagined than this same G. B. S. if ever he achieved political power. But the sanctity of the matrimonial tie must be maintained, he asserts. When women get the vote. then marriage as an instf- tuition will meet its fate. The play itself is roaring knockout farce comedys
 Now, isn't this very old fashioned? This leader of modern movements, like sentimental socialists (and all socialists are sentimentalists, inasmuch as they fall back on fairy tales and fables). will not look life squarely in the face, but views 1t through romantic spectacles. He once wtttily remarked, and he can't help being witty even when he doesn't intend to be. that the romantic temper ament is the old maids temperament There you have painted in one masterly stroke the character of Shaw by Shaw. And how you rub your eyes after reading "The Shewing-up of Blanco IPosnet," half baked Bret Harte fantasy treated in the topsy-turvy method of w. s. Gilbert and spiced after the ia : miliar blasphemous manner of any old time camp meeting revivalist! The English play censor must be totally lacking in humor to have forbidden the performance of this childish and senti- mental episode. A lady with a past and present, but no future copiously weeps at the sight of an infants hand every one weeps. the stage drips; and the language, supposedly Americanese is evolved from MT. Shaw's subconscious self. But 1t Is amusing.
 The prefaces take up the major part of the fat volume; indeed, the preface not the plays the thing They are worth reading, though If the plays are. then the prefaces gre superfluousI Ieither the ono or the other. v To | Dublin 1nterViewer 10 f6l1ow sc6ontry- lmdld 4E asaa'6, eeoeGe 11eorass11d tha1