Three and a half stars. I'm happy to live at a historical juncture that gives us access to the term -'splaining, as Shawsplaining is the dominant mode of GBS' work. These plays all features heroes--inevitably men--who usually triumph over opposition by explaining something counterintuitive to a woman. This does not necessarily preclude moments of delight in the dialogue; yet even the delight feels channeled towards the inevitable explanation of some point.

Candida was my favourite play in this compilation of plays by George Bernard Shaw. Still, anything written by George Bernard Shaw is worth reading. Another book I read in my first year of acting school.

Originally published on my blog here in June 1998.

As the introduction makes clear, this collection is intended as a companion piece to Shaw's Plays Unpleasant collection. Not having read the earlier collection, I'm not quite sure what makes a play pleasant or unpleasant; I guess that it's to do with whether it is trying to impart a non-dramatic message. The four short plays here are not really anything other than fun comedies; there is a hint of a social message here and there (particularly in Candida and You Never Can Tell), but it is incidental to the plays themselves.

The play I liked best from the collection, and the best known of them, is Arms and the Man. This is set in Bulgaria, then an exotic barely civilised location, during a war with Serbia. The main characters are a rich Bulgarian family, the Petkoffs. The spoiled daughter of this family, Raina, is engaged to the dashing young soldier Sergius Saranoff, currently at the front. As Raina is going to bed, a young man in Serbian uniform climbs into her bedroom through the window. She is initially scornful of his cowardice, but she sheilds him when Bulgarian troops arrive to find him. She calls him her "chocolate cream soldier", because he avidly eats her sweets. It is perhaps surprising to read in the introduction that Shaw was criticised for portraying a soldier in an unheroic light; attitudes were so different before the First World War.

Candida is about a man who is a genuine Christian and a genuine Socialist, James Morrell. He and his wife, Candida, are a couple who attract those around them; his preaching and public speaking draws hundreds, and she finds herself the idol of the lovesick young poet, Eugene. Neither of them understands the attraction they, or their spouse, have for others; that is their tragedy. The contrast is made between them with their ideals and Candida's father, Burgess, who is a most unpleasant capitalist only interested in the welfare of his dependents because he can make it pay.

Man of Destiny is virtually a two-hander; the other characters are tiny by comparison with the leads. The main character is Napoleon Bonaparte in his youth, as a young general in the French Republican army invading Italy - his first great success. He is at an inn in northern Italy, awaiting the arrival of dispatches. The lieutenant carrying them arrives, but they have been stolen from him on the way by a youth; he recognises a mysterious lady (whose identity we never discover) as the youth. Napoleon protects her, denying the possibility that she can be the same person. The play develops into a battle of wits between him and her.

The final play, You Never Can Tell, is a fairly straightforward comedy. The Clandon family have been living in Madeira, after Mrs Clandon felt forced to leave England following attacks on her feminist views. Returning to this country with her three children (Gloria, a young woman after her mother's heart; Philip and Dolly, who are young enough not to have quite outgrown their childishness), the family meet up with a Mr Crampton, landlord of a dentist who falls in love with Gloria, and who turns out to be Mrs Clandon's abandoned husband and father of the three children.

A work which explores human emotion and society very well. Indeed the author is very perceptive about human psychology and even takes a dig at romanticized ideals.

Candida ***
You Never Can Tell ***
The Man of Destiny ****
Arms and the Man ****

Oh Shaw, you cantankerous irishman. You be my favoritist playwright ever. People may get all moist about Ibsen, but you'll always be my favorite proto-feminist because you refuse to bash me over the head with your naughty liberal ideas like they were a leg'o'mutton. Maybe it's true that you couldn't have written the way you did without Ibsen forging the path of controversy, but he didn't have to be so ham-handed about it. Give me a snarky Irishman any day.

There’s a lightness about these plays; they don’t pretend to speak of great things, but do nonetheless with a sense of playfulness and fresh wit. I’ve come to enjoy the scene-to-scene, dialogue-to-dialogue nature of plays, its wit and quickness, and I’ve a lot to thank Shaw for it.

Full review:
https://hifzehayat.blogspot.com/2022/...

A first attempt at reading a play outside of a school environment and the plays were very entertaining to read. They were clever and filled with some commentary on the subject themes they were based on.

All in all, a good read

Eh..I didn't love "Arms and the Man."

all of them amazing

This collection of four plays by George Bernard Shaw makes fun of society and people, in all seriousness. The author’s descriptions are meticulous - you can just *picture* the scenes unwinding.

The way in which the plays are constructed is relatively obvious (if masterful) and, in my opinion, they pale in comparison to Pygmalion, one of his later works.

I don't find George Bernard Shaw as entertaining as I'm supposed to. I have no doubt that his work was very forward-thinking and funny at the time, and I know that he is an important playwright. I'm also sure that in the hands of the right director any of these plays would be fantastic. However, I felt like all of the stories in this collection contained the same gimmicks. You could tell where the play was going in the first couple scenes. I guess my favorite of them all was Candida. It had the most unexpected plotline, and I felt like it wasn't trying to be anything.