Plays Unpleasant
THE BERNARD SHAW LIBRARY
PLAYS UNPLEASANT
‘He did his best in redressing the fateful unbalance between truth and reality, in lifting mankind to a higher rung of social maturity. He often pointed a scornful finger at human frailty, but his jests were never at the expense of humanity’ Thomas Mann
‘Shaw will not allow complacency; he hates second-hand opinions; he attacks fashion; he continually challenges and unsettles, questioning and provoking us even when he is making us laugh. And he is still at it. No cliché or truism of contemporary life is safe from him’ Michael Holroyd
‘In his works Shaw left us his mind… Today we have no Shavian wizard to awaken us with clarity and paradox, and the loss to our national intelligence is immense’ John Carey, Sunday Times
‘An important writer and an interesting socialist and critic… Thank God he lived’ Peter Levi, Independent
‘He was a Tolstoy with jokes, a modern Dr Johnson, a universal genius who on his own modest reckoning put even Shakespeare in the shade’ John Campbell, Independent
‘His plays were superb exercises in high-level argument on every issue under the sun, from feminism and God, to war and eternity, but they were also hits – and still are’ Paul Johnson, Daily Mail
BERNARD SHAW was born in Dublin in 1856. Although essentially shy, he created the persona of G.B.S., the showman, satirist, controversialist, critic, pundit, wit, intellectual buffoon and dramatist. Commentators brought a new adjective into English: Shavian, a term used to embody all his brilliant qualities.
After his arrival in London in 1876 he became an active Socialist and a brilliant platform speaker. He wrote on many social aspects of the day: on Common Sense about the War (1914), How to Settle the Irish Question (1917) and The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (1928). He undertook his own education at the British Museum and consequently became keenly interested in cultural subjects. Thus his prolific output included music, art and theatre reviews, which were collected into several volumes, such as Music In London 1890–1894 (3 vols., 1931), Pen Portraits and Reviews (1931); and Our Theatres in the Nineties (23 vols., 1931). He also wrote five novels, including Cashel Byron’s Profession (published by Penguin), and a collection of shorter works issued as A Black Girl in Search of God and Some Lesser Tales (also in Penguin).
Shaw conducted a strong attack on the London Theatre and was closely associated with the intellectual revival of British Theatre. His many plays (the full canon runs to 52) fall into several categories: ‘Plays Pleasant’; ‘Plays Unpleasant’; ‘Plays for Puritans’; political plays; chronicle plays; ‘metabiological Pentateuch’ (Back to Methuselah) in five plays; extravaganzas; romances; and fables. He died in 1950.
DAVID EDGAR was Britain’s first professor of Playwriting Studies, at the University of Birmingham. He has written widely on theatre, most recently editing and introducing State of Play, a study of contemporary British playwriting. His original plays include Destiny (1976), Maydays (1983) and Pentecost (1994) for the Royal Shakespeare Company and Entertaining Strangers (1987) and The Shape of the Table (1990) for the National Theatre. His adaptations include Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby (RSC, 1980) and Albert Speer (National Theatre, 2000), based on Gitta Sereny’s biography.
DAN H. LAURENCE, editor of Shaw’s Collected Letters, his Collected Plays with their Prefaces, Shaw’s Music and (with Daniel Leary) The Complete Prefaces, was Literary Adviser to the Shaw Estate until his retirement in 1990. He is Series Editor for the works of Shaw in Penguin.
BERNARD SHAW
PLAYS UNPLEASANT
WIDOWERS’ HOUSES
THE PHILANDERER
MRS WARREN’S PROFESSION
Definitive text under the editorial supervision of
DAN H. LAURENCE
with an Introduction by DAVID EDGAR
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Published in Penguin Books 26 July 1946
Reprinted with a new Introduction in Penguin Classics 2000
13
‘Widowers’ House’ first produced in London, 1892; in New York, 1907
‘The Philanderer’ first produced in London, 1905 (West End, 1917); in New York, 1913; in Berlin, 1908
‘Mrs Warren’s Profession’ first performed (privately) in London, 1902; (publicly Birmingham, 1925;
London, 1925; first produced in America, 1905; in Berlin, 1907.
‘Plays Unpleasant’. Copyright 1931, George Bernard Shaw. Copyright 1958, The Public Trustee as
Executor of the Estate of George Bernard Shaw.
‘Widower’s House’. Copyright 1898, 1913, 1926, 1930, 1933, 1941, George Bernard Shaw. Copyright 1905,
Brentano’s. Copyright 1957, The Public Trustee as Executor of the Estate of George Bernard Shaw.
‘The Philanderer’. Copyright 1898, 1913, 1926, 1930, 1933, 1941, George Bernard Shaw. Copyright 1905,
Brentano’s. Copyright 1957, The Public Trustee as Executor of the Estate of George Bernard Shaw.
‘Mrs Warren’s Profession’. Copyright 1898, 1913, 1926, 1930, 1933, 1941, George Bernard Shaw. Copyright
1905, Brentano’s. Copyright 1957, The Public Trustee as Executor of the Estate of George Bernard Shaw.
Introduction copyright © David Edgar 2000
All rights reserved
All business connected with Bernard Show’s plays is in the hands of The Society of Authors, 84 Drayton Gardens,
London SW10 gSB (Telephone 020-7373 6642), to which all inquiries and applications for licences should be addressed
and fees paid. Dates and places of contemplated performances must be precisely specified in all applications.
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