G. Thompson
Shaw's bio--
Like many of the best British writers, Shaw was Irish, beginning his career late in the Victorian period and living and producing work to the middle of the 20th century. In keeping with our discussion of politics and drama, he was a socialist and very much a gadfly in the political scene: he was in large part responsible for advocating Ibsen (e.g., putting on A Doll House in a private home when he couldn't get a theater to produce it). Shaw's plays typically open with a fairly conventional situation and then demonstrate its hypocrisy, as in for example Mrs Warren's Profession--she is a very respectable upper-middle-class mother meeting her somewhat estranged daughter; and Mrs Warren is also a madam and former prostitute, in business with a capitalist. Her daughter Vivie might be the product of her business partner Crofts, or the play's artist figure Praed, or the now-respectable parson Rev. Samuel Gardner. Shaw uses the plot to call attention to the hypocrisy behind late-Victorian prudery--Vivie extracts herself from all this, and from the romantic lead Frank, by putting her mathematical skills to use in the workplace.
Shaw is a great advocate of work, serious work, often in occupations which bring new social power to bear. His linguist Henry Higgins, in Pygmalion, uses his understanding of dialects to place people in social class, using it in a bet to convert the flower-girl Eliza Doolittle to be able to pose as a duchess (and eventually, perhaps, own her own flower ship to sell to the upper-classes, which Shaw says requires better English).
Shaw began as a novelist, but quickly understood that the theater was his metier. His intent was to introduce social realism in Ibsen's manner to the English stage. HIs first successful play was Arms and the Man, 1894; followed by Caesar and Cleopatra, Man and Superman, Major Barbara (1905), Pygmalion (1912), Heartbreak House (1917), Back to Methuselah (1922), Saint Joan (1923), and many others.
Part of Shaw's politics was an interest in simplified spelling (and punctuation)--so you'll find some oddities in his text. Following traditional British rules, there's no period after Mr and Mrs -- instead of using italics for emphasis, he spaces between letters, which becomes awkward with one-letter words . . . He omits apostrophes in contractions.
Even better
A minute or two should be enough.
Characters:
Lady Britomart (Undershaft)
Stephen Undershaft
Morrison
Barbara Undershaft
Sarah Undershaft
Charles Lomax
Adolphus Cusins
Andrew Undershaft
Rummy Mitchens
Snobby Price
Jenny Hill
Peter Shirley
Bill Walker
Mrs. Baines
Bilton
Exposition: what is the situation w/r/t Andrew Undershaft's profession and the effects on his family?
He's an arms manufacturer who profits from conflicts throughout the world, e.g., the Boer War. He's rather estranged from his family--Lady Britomart likes the money (she has no income of her own), but lives with their children apart from him. Stephen, their son, has been kept in the dark about his father, apart from reading about him in the newspaper.
Read 55-56, Stephen's complaint about seeing their name in the paper, and hearing people praise Undershaft. Undershaft and Lazarus have political power.
Undershaft is not the recipient of inherited money (new money, in contrast to old money)--he was a "foundling," and will carry on the tradition of finding a "foundling" to take on the firm, thus disinheriting Stephen (except for money, which he will have). The tradition goes back to James I of England (Elizabeth's successor!).
Undershaft motto: Unashamed. Discuss.
Discussion: find a passage or passages from act 1 which best show characterizations of the following:
As characters:
Lady Britomart
Stephen
Charles Lomax and Adolphus Cusins (contrast)
Public and family reaction to the firm of Undershaft and Lazarus
Family financial dependence upon Andrew Undershaft
Andrew Undershaft as unashamed
Barbara as advocate for Salvation Army
Re hypocrisy: Lady Britomart doesn't mind Andrew's doing immoral things, only saying that he's doing them (58). He has a "religion of wrongness."
Stephen's simplicity: right is right, and wrong is wrong (59)
Stephen: "I would die sooner than ask him for another penny."
Lady Britomart: "You mean that I must ask him. Very well, Stephen: it shall be as you wish."
The rest of the dinner party, besides her, Stephen, and Andrew: the girls, Sarah and Barbara, and their fiances, Charles Lomax and Adolphus Cusins.
Read stage directions, 61-62. 'These obviously go far beyond anything that an actor can show on stage.
Barbara's work with Salvation Army--discuss. How is that thought of? Rather different from their cultural presence now, where it's basically a second-hand store--much more active in religious proselytizing, particularly in getting people to give up drink.
She's very self-possessed.
Undershaft--explains his devotion to newer and better methods of "blood and fire," 69-70.
Undershaft and his daughter Barbara make a deal: he will visit her at the Salvation Army, if she will visit his arms factory; both will try to convert the other.
It's cheeky in the extreme to juxtapose the Salvation Army (metaphorical battle, "Onward Christian Soldiers," history of crusades, etc.--or is it metaphorical? See comments at the first link) and the literal armies which Undershaft supplies.