George Bernard Shaw's theatrical creation

Text/Ma Jiajun

George Bernard Shaw was a playwright familiar to Chinese people. His full English name should translate to "George Bernard Shaw". George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was Ireland's most prominent master of realist theatre from the late 19th century to the first half of the 20th century. At that time, Ireland still belonged to Britain, so Shaw was known as the greatest British dramatist after Shakespeare.

I. George Bernard Shaw's life and plays

Shaw was born on 26 July 1856 to a family of minor civil servants in Dublin, the capital of Ireland. Because of his family's poverty, he finished secondary school and began to make a living for himself at the age of 15, working as a clerk in a real estate company. In 1876 George Bernard Shaw went to London to find his mother. His mother was a musician and subsidized the family by singing and teaching music. Under the influence of his mother, Shaw, who had long loved art, wrote music and drama reviews for the London press, and began to write. In his early years, George Bernard Shaw wrote five unsuccessful novels, including Immature and The Unsociable Socialist. At the same time, he faced the crisis of British capitalism in the 1980s and read a wide range of books. He received socialist ideas from Henry George's Progress and Poverty, and learned from Marx's Capital to observe capitalist exploitation from political economy. But George Bernard Shaw did not follow the path of Marxism. In 1884, he joined the Fabian Society. Fabian was the roman general who was called Concordat (meaning "slow-forward"). He is good at using a slow-forward strategy to seek compromise with the enemy. The British Fabian Society is named after it. George Bernard Shaw was politically active in the Fabian Society for more than a decade. At the beginning of the 20th century, George Bernard Shaw's thought was full of contradictions, he opposed the First World War, supported the October Revolution, and the October Revolution resolved his ideological contradictions. In the 1930s he traveled the world. In 1931, he visited the Soviet Union and praised the socialist system. In 1932, he visited China and met with Soong Ching-ling, Lu Xun, and others to support the Chinese people in opposing the aggression of Japanese imperialism. In 1950, at the age of 94, George Bernard Shaw made a statement opposing U.S. imperialism's invasion of Korea. He died on 2 November 1950 in the suburbs of London.

From 1885, when he began writing plays, to 1949, he wrote 51 plays in his lifetime, making a great contribution to the history of realist theater.

In the 19th century, under the influence of Ibsen, Shaw wrote social problem dramas, declaring war on the popular pornographic, decadent and mythological dramas of the time. He published three collections of plays, including Unpleasant Drama, Pleasant Drama, and Drama for the Puritans. The Unpleasant Drama includes Widower's Estate (1885-1892), The Prodigal Son (1893), and Mrs. Warren's Occupation (1894). Pleasant Drama includes Four plays: Arms and Men (1894), Contida (1894), The Man of the Storm (1895), and Unpredictability (1894). Plays Written for the Puritans includes three plays: The Devil's Disciple (1897), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898), and The Transformation of Captain Brass Pound (1897). George Bernard Shaw's theatrical compositions in the 19th century are Widower's Estate and Mrs. Warren's Occupation.

Widower's Estate is George Bernard Shaw's famous work, which profoundly exposes the exploitation of workers by British capitalism. The young doctor Quranqi learns that his fiancée Blanchi's father, Satorias, is a capitalist who has made a fortune by brutally exploiting the poor in the slums, so he dissolves the marriage contract. Later, he discovered that his family was also the owner of the real estate who lived by exploitation, so he married Blanche. He shared the same fate as his father-in-law and made a fortune at the expense of the public interest. George Bernard Shaw exposed the overt and hypocritical bourgeois elements of all kinds.

At the beginning of the 20th century, George Bernard Shaw wrote the plays Man and Superman (1903), The Other Island of the British (1904), Major Barbara (1905), Marriage (1908), The Marriage of the Nobles (1910), Fanny's First Play (1910), The Dark-Skinned Lady in sonnets (1910), The Doctor's Destitute (1911), Antlochrys and the Lion (1912), Androcris and the Lion (1913), Pygmy Morion (1913, 1913, a translation). Flower Girl"), Wartime Miscellaneous Drama (1912), House of Sorrows (1919), etc.

"Major Barbara" is his pre-war masterpiece. Barbara, the daughter of the arms factory owner Anderscheft, is a devout Christian who served as a "major" in the Salvation Army and specialized in charity to help the poor. The biggest benefactor of the Salvation Army's funding is her father. This capitalist, who made his fortune by producing arms and killing people in war, used blowing people and society into the air as a source of pleasure and prosperity. The script exposes the hypocrisy of capitalist charities.

The title of "Pig marion" is derived from the name of a king in ancient Greek legend, he carved an ivory maiden, fell in love with her, the goddess gave life, and the king married his own product. The linguist Schukins met the poor flower girl Eliza and trained her to be a noble lady with elegant speech. But instead of loving her, he confirmed that his experiment had been successful and abandoned her. The flower girl can no longer do the past business, and knows the face of the egoist. The play was performed 118 times on the London stage in 1914 with great success. In the 1950s, it was changed to a comedy opera "Lady of the Flowers", which was performed in the United States alone for 2717 times, which caused a sensation in the West.

House of Sorrow is a play that George Bernard Shaw began to write before the war and published after the war. This three-act play is written about the heartbroken home of the eccentric old captain ShawTfei. The captain sees through the corruption of society and warns people that the end is coming. His eldest daughter, Hexi, lives a corrupt life with her husband Hector and girlfriend Allie. Love, money, religion, morality are all deceptions. Everything is in chaos and decadence. At the beginning of the First World War, people wanted this home to blow up. The script is symbolic, and the "House of Sorrow" is the hopeless British Empire at dusk. The script shows pessimism and despair.

The 1920s and 1940s were a period of deepening thinking and critique in George Bernard Shaw's plays. He wrote the philosophical drama Back to the Time of Matthew Slava (1921), the historical drama Joan of Arc (1923), the political drama The Apple Car (1929), the grotesque drama The Truth (1932), The Millionaire Woman (1936), and so on.

Joan of Arc is Shaw's only historical drama and tragedy. The play begins with a legendary depiction of Joan of Arc's heroic history of leading the peasants, persuading the court, and fighting bravely against the British invaders, and the second half exposes the tragedy of the church, the feudal court and the British invaders colluding to execute Joan of Arc at the stake. The author shows the unity of the heroine and the people.

"The Apple Car" is a representative of George Bernard Shaw's modern plays and occupies an important place in his creation.

Engels said in 1892 that George Bernard Shaw was "a man of integrity, not an ambitionist", that in politics his Fabianism "wanted the workers to join the Liberal Party" and that he was "very talented and resourceful as a writer" (1). George Bernard Shaw's second half-century of manhood and creation was as Engels predicted.

MRS. Warren's Occupation

Mrs. Warren's Occupation is a satire in George Bernard Shaw's The Unpleasant Drama Collection. The so-called "unpleasant" means that the exposé and criticism of capitalist society in the play cause people to meditate, and the effect is not to be joyful (although there is humor and humor in artistic expression), but to make people "unpleasant". This play is Shaw's representative work in 19th-century theatrical creation. It was completed in 1894, but it could not be staged, and the United Kingdom and the United States could perform yellow and obscene things, while the exposé work was regarded as a flood beast and banned. It wasn't until the 20th century, after several struggles, that it had to be performed on stage.

As a social problem drama, although "Mrs. Warren's Occupation" superficially writes about the contradictions between mother and daughter, it actually reveals sharp social conflicts. Miss Vivi, 22, is a high-level intellectual who received higher education under the support of her mother. After returning home from vacation, she was surrounded by partners in her mother's business and some gentlemen. From the mouths of these suitors and courtors, the law scholar learned that her mother, Mrs. Warren, was engaged in a profession of opening brothels, and that she and her partners had black prostitution hotels in Brussels, Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest. It was the dirty money exploited from the prostitutes that raised Vivi and made her a learned superior. Vivi felt that the corrupt capitalist society and the despicable cause of prostitution hurt her beautiful imagination of purity and romanticism. She broke with her mother and ran away from home to live an independent life on her own. Shaw made a fierce critique of the capitalist system in this social conflict. As the author of the social problem drama, George Bernard Shaw admired Ibsen, but Ibsen only asked questions and did not list prescriptions for social pain, and he left a big question mark for the audience. George Bernard Shaw, on the other hand, prescribes a Fabian doctrine, denying capitalism from an ethical and moral point, leaving behind an exclamation point. But Shaw's ideas on Vivi's future path are narrow, and like Nala's unclear path, it has historical limitations.

The image shaw created is vivid. Mrs. Warren's behavior and performance are logical. When she was young, she engaged in a profession of selling out her youth because of her poverty, so that it was not clear who Miss Vivi's father was. Her mother was poor, two half-sisters: one died of poisoning from hard work in the factory; one married and had three children, while the husband was unable to support the whole family, only drunk, and his own life was extremely difficult. The two sisters are decent, noble, but at the bottom of life. Mrs. Warren knew how to conform to the laws of capitalism and lived a life of the upper class in the cause of prostitution. She knew that the exploitation of prostitutes was a criminal act, but what could she do but do other than this evil deed? This despicable cause made her rich and made her daughter truly superior. When her daughter broke with her, she cried and seduced her, so that her daughter sympathized with her and continued to live a luxurious life. She understands and uncovers the dark underworld of capitalism, but she still seeks profit in the dark.

A group of figures associated with Mrs. Warren are representatives of the capitalist system. Croff is Mrs. Warren's partner, a despicable and vulgar city servant who has a reactionary philosophy and fantasizes about using marriage to unite the common cause of the partners by proposing to Vivi. Other gentle sheep-like, donkey-like arrogance, moral preaching and duplicitous Gatnan Semel, middle-aged gentleman Bonet, who has a kind of village custom hypocrisy copied from the novel, the flirtatious and vulgar, well-dressed but flashy young man Funeske, and so on, constitute a shrunken capitalist society. Vivi's rejection of them and her contempt for her mother's friends were a manifestation of her conflict with the capitalist system.

Vivi, a young woman, did not have the weakness, ignorance, and obedience of the sentimental ladies of the time, she was learned and thoughtful, and she despised the hypocrisy and emptiness of high society. She was good at thinking, painfully asking about her origins and her mother's profession. She learned of her mother's history and situation, and understood that she had been forced to do a vulgar career, but she still left and went her own way. Vivi does not want to live on her mother's dirty money, does not want to be a parasite, she has to work, to create. But Vivi's so-called independent life is nothing more than going to a law firm, copying and writing, dealing with numbers, smoking and talking at night, or walking sports. Such happy days are of no benefit to changing society. This Fabianist gradualism merely perpetuates Mrs. Warren's profession and the decay of capitalism.

Shaw's theatrical art is fully reflected in Mrs. Warren's Occupation. He reversed the salon drama and warm drama of the time, but the spicy irony. His satire is not ugly and exaggerated, but the serious content is accompanied by humorous and funny forms. Let the audience deny the negative things in laughter, and meditate on all this and trap people with unpleasant seriousness.

The characters in George Bernard Shaw's play have distinct social tendencies. There are often debates between characters. As a thinker, George Bernard Shaw was a playwright on social issues, and his views were often spoken through the mouths of the characters, but the characters had personalities, not simple microphones. He seems to have its own truth in the form of counter-arguments, such as Mrs. Warren's talk about her experience and philosophy of life, and is exposing society in the opposite of these arguments.

George Bernard Shaw is a master storyteller, and his scripts have ups and downs, often using sudden turns to bring the audience to new situations. In terms of portraying characters, the pen edge focuses on the psychological state of the characters, writing out the changes in the emotions of the characters, the links are tightly linked, and the original commission is clear. For example, after Mrs. Warren learned that her daughter knew her details, she first used a comfortable life to induce, then used the past suffering to impress, used the mother's identity to impress, and finally saw that the situation could not be saved, so she broke her mouth and cursed fiercely. These psychological emotions are written in detail and make the characters come to life.

George Bernard Shaw's theatrical arts were carried forward in his later plays.

III. "Apple Car"

The Apple Car is a "political rhapsody" comedy written by George Bernard Shaw in 1929. It is a masterpiece of George Bernard Shaw's 20th-century theatrical creation. The script is written in Britain after 1962, that is, fantasizing about the political situation in Britain 33 years later. In a satirical tone, the author shows the contradictory struggle between King Magnus on one side and Prime Minister Brotas on the other. King Magnus often addressed the populace, appeared in the news, and sometimes exercised veto power over cabinet and parliamentary resolutions. Naturally, this caused resentment among the Prime Minister and ministers. Prime Minister Brotas, in order to have great power, proposed an ultimatum to the king: either the king restrained his behavior, renounced the veto, and truly became a constitutional king, when passing the rubber stamp of the government's resolution; or the prime minister gave the public the king's moral inferiority, exposed his lustfulness and disbelief, and announced his resignation, causing a national political crisis. In the struggle, the ministers were not united, some fell to the king, some had a warm attitude, and some did not care. The king was not only very cunning, but also supported by the Americans, and with the encouragement of his mistress, the king unexpectedly "overturned the apple car". The British idiom means to sabotage the schemes of others and to disturb the wishful thinking. The title of "Apple Car" exposes the corruption of British politics and the hypocrisy of democracy. Magnus, under the threat of the Prime Minister, promised to sign the ultimatum and agreed to the king to become the constitutional king as a rubber stamp, but it was not he who played this futile role, he wanted to abdicate, cede the king to his son Robert Dang, announced the dissolution of parliament, carried out general elections, and organized political parties as a commoner himself, participated in the election, believing that he would win, and his son King Robert would authorize him to form a cabinet. So the Prime Minister went from being an attacker to a loser, demanding an ultimatum, reconciling with the king, business as usual, and declaring the end of the political crisis.

This political farce, although it was the scene of Shaw's fantasies decades later, satirized the social and political dirtiness of Britain at that time and exposed the faces of the ministers and politicians. The Minister of Trade, Bouches, was a hypocritical democratic worker thief, and even Princess Alice saw that he naturally belonged to the ruling class, and wearing workers' clothing was a kind of fabrication. The postmaster general Amanda is a leprechaun who can be selfish, funny, and can play with hues. The colonial minister, Kolassas, pretended to be public and private, the minister of the interior, Barbas, was rude and arrogant, the female minister of electricity, Lisistrata, was a fake canon, and the foreign minister, the finance minister, and so on were all despicable guys. As Olympia, the king's mistress, put it, "A bunch of squalors, upstarts, schemers, and clowns are all in charge of state affairs." (1) All this is a reflection of the critique of existing British politics.

George Bernard Shaw's plays are known for their deep satire and unique style of humor. In "The Apple Car", the author writes that the American ambassador Wan Ha Bomb came to negotiate the merger of Britain and the United States with King Magnus, and said that instead of destroying Britain, he moved the capital to Washington to expand the country and renew the savage British culture. This foreshadows the future of the British Empire's descent into a vassal of the United States, and more fully demonstrates Shaw's witty humor and extraordinary satirical art.

The author writes many character dialogues and long speeches, and in the seeming lack of plot vividness, he satirizes the British upper class through the language of the characters and with sharp and incisive warning sentences: for example, few People in the British know what is called thought; people lose their heads, it is nothing anyway; the prime minister and the king are busy; the prime minister is the prime minister because he will not do anything else; the endless plight of England is the result of the capitalists' exploitation of the labor of the foreign poor; and so on.

In this political rhapsody, George Bernard Shaw also used farce. A group of chaotic ministers playing around together shows the characteristics of this "nonsense cabinet" and increases the laughter of the audience. George Bernard Shaw revolutionized the art of comedy with its political sharpness and ironic character.

[Note]

(1) Marx and Engels on Art, Vol. 4, People's Literature Publishing Du, 1966, p. 60.

(Note: The author of this article has authorized this headline)

(Ma Jiajun, a native of Qingyuan, Hebei, born on October 5, 1929, is currently a professor at the College of Literature of Shaanxi Normal University, a member of the Chinese Writers Association, a member of the Chinese Dramatists Association, a member of the Chinese Filmmakers Association, an honorary president (former president) of the Shaanxi Foreign Literature Society, a principle of the Chinese Foreign Literature Society, a principle of the Chinese Russian Literature Research Society, a former president of the Shaanxi Provincial Higher Education Drama Research Society, a former consultant of the Shaanxi Poetry Society, and a former executive director of the Shaanxi Provincial Federation of Social Science Societies. Shaanxi Province to build socialist spiritual civilization advanced individuals, Shaanxi Province to teach and educate advanced teachers, etc., enjoy special allowances from the State Council.

He is the author of 12 kinds of "Nineteenth Century Russian Literature", "The New Stage of Aesthetic History", "Poetry Exploration", "Exploration of World Literature", etc.; 4 kinds of "The Essence of World Literature" and "History of Western Drama" co-authored with his daughter Ma Xiaoyi; 9 kinds of "History of World Literature" (3 volumes) and "Research on Gorky's Creation"; edited 4 kinds of "30 Lectures on European and American Modernist Literature"; co-edited and co-authored "100 Topics of Marxism-Leninism", "Cultural Research Methods", "50 Lectures on Oriental Literature", "Western Literature in the Twentieth Century", etc. and more than 40 kinds.

It has been listed in more than 40 kinds, such as the Dictionary of Chinese Writers, the Dictionary of Chinese Poets, the Dictionary of Chinese Social Science Scholars, the Cambridge Dictionary of International Biographies (27th Edition in English), the Directory of Experts in Russian Studies Abroad (Russian Edition) of the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Classics of Shaanxi Century of Literature and Art. ）