Pygmalion: Bernard Shaw's Dramatic Theory and Practice

Extract

In the last of his many discussions of the so-called play of ideas, Bernard Shaw remarked, “I was, and still am, the most old-fashioned playwright outside China and Japan.” This is one of the few statements that Shaw made about his own work of which we may safely believe every word—always assuming him to be correct about China and Japan. He was, to be sure, merely echoing his earlier, confession in the Preface to Three Plays For Puritans, in which he had defended The Devil's Disciple against a reckless charge of originality: “If it applies to the incidents, plot, construction, and general professional and technical qualities of the play, [it] is nonsense; for the truth is, I am in these matters a very old-fashioned playwright.” He elsewhere admonished us: “Remember that my business as a classic writer of comedies is ‘to chasten morals with ridicule’ . . .” It is my purpose here to describe and interpret some of the stages through which Shaw passed and some of the attitudes which he assumed in the course of coming to such conclusions.