A Bulletin for
George Bernard Shaw
October 2006
With the new
series of THE OSCHOLARS, Shavings (which began as a section within THE OSCHOLARS and then became one of it supplementary pages) further emancipated
itself and became one of the Irish Literary Bulletins hosted by www.irish.diasporanet, the site for
Irish and other diaspora studies owned by Patrick O’Sullivan (University
of Bradford). Responsibility for its
content, however, remains with the editorial team of THE OSCHOLARS. We cannot yet see how this will
develop but the main thrust of Shavings
will continue as before to explore the world of Shaw during the lifetime of
Wilde, but clearly we will not turn our backs on such later Shaw material as
presents itself. Contributions and ideas
from readers will be welcome. That said,
we are here only to complement the excellent work done on Shaw elsewhere,
notably by the Shaw associations and their publications, and these will be
given their due measure in our columns.
We regret very much that Dr Julie A. Sparks, who was Associate Editor for Shavings, has no longer been able to continue as such. We thank her for her enthusiasm and support.
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'Oh, Shaw! That's the man who smokes Jaeger cigarettes!' –
Oscar Wilde, quoted
by Richard Le Gallienne: The Romantic Nineties. New edition. |
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1. The Plays c. Candida Two Paris productions and an essay |
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2. Shawlines a. Conferences b. Shaw at 150 c. Lectures d. Publications e. The Shrines f. Exhibition |
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3. Anthology: Echoes of Oscar b. Candida e. Letters |
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b. Websites |
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a. The International Shaw Society c. The Bernard Shaw Society & The Independent Shavian |
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6. Tailpiece |
1. The Plays
In this section we try to cover productions of Shaw's
pre-1901 plays, and news of productions of these (with offers of review) will
be most welcome. The plays are Arms and the Man (1894), Cæsar
and Cleopatra (1898), Candida (1895), Captain Brassbound's
Conversion (1899), The Devil's Disciple (1897),The Man of Destiny
(1895), Mrs Warren's Profession (1893),The Philanderer (1893),
Widowers' Houses (1892), You Never Can Tell (1895). (Dates of composition, not first performance.) Wilde is known to have attended the
first night of Arms and the Man (
The Shaw Festival
at
The 2005 season included You Never Can Tell and Major Barbara while the 2004 season included Pygmalion and Man and Superman, with Wilde represented by The Importance of being Ernest (and Synge by The Tinkers’ Wedding).
The
Shaw Season in Chicago
O’Flaherty V.C. and The
Shewing Up of Blanco Posnet 26th July 2006 Claudia Cassidy Theatre, Chicago Cultural Center
You Never Can Tell 14th October to 6th -
Arms and The
Man
The Women of Shaw
Candida
This was broadcast by the wireless station BBC7 on 24th June, compressed into ninety minutes.
Hannah Gordon played Candida, and Edward Petherbridge played Morell. Eugene Marchbanks was played by Christopher Gard, Burgess by Ray Smith, Lexy Mill by Neville Jason and Miss Garnett by Irene Sutcliffe. Directed by Ronald Mason.
Mrs
Warren’s Profession
15th
November to
http://www.centuriontheatre.co.uk
Twentieth Century clippings:
Two
Paris
Pygmalion,
adapted by Claude-André Puget, directed by Nicolas Briançon. Théâtre Comedia, 4 boulevard de
Sainte-Jeanne, adapted from
the French text by Anika Scherrer, directed by Marie Véronique Raban for the
Compagnie de Marchepied. Théâtre du Nord-Ouest, 13 rue du Faubourg
Cast in alphabetical order: Pygmalion
Mrs Eynsford Hill : Catherine Alcover
Alfred Doolittle : Jean-Claude Barbier
Colonel Pickering : Henri Courseaux
A man : Bruno Henry
Clara Eynsford Hill : Fleur Houdinière
Mrs Higgins : Danièle Lebrun
Freddy Eynsford Hill : Pierre-Alain Leleu
A sarcastic man : Jean-Paul Lopez
Mrs Pearce : Odile Mallet
A young girl : Maurine Nicot
Maidservant : Maurine Nicot
Eliza Doolittle : Barbara Schulz
Henry Higgins : Nicolas Vaude
Crew
Costumes : Michel Fresnay
Lighting : Gaiëlle de Maiglave
Choreography : Karine Orts
Set design : Jean-Marc Stehlé
Cast in alphabetical order: St Joan
St Joan : Odila Caminos
The Dauphin : Jean-Christophe Clément
Father de Stogumber : Pascal Daubias
La Hire and the English soldier : Thibault Dudin
The Earl of
La
Trémouille, d’Estivet and the
Dunois : Loïck Hello
Archbishop of
De Poulengy and de Courcelles : Romain Lévi
Robert de Baudricourt : Pierre
Maurice
Father Martin : Alexandre
Moriset
Pierre Cauchon, bishop of Beauvais : Rémy
Oppert
Inquisitor : Marie
Véronique Raban
Crew:
Set and costume design : Anna-Lise Galavelle
Sound : Bertrand Durand
Light : Loïck Hello
.
Inspired by this production, Lou
Ferreira (Université de Paris X –
Notes on the play Saint Joan by Bernard Shaw
1.
Understanding the body in Shaw’s Saint Joan
This interpretation of Shaw’s play, deriving from its first impact, offers a means of understanding the relationship between the actions and the bodies (down to the burned body of Joan of Arc) by taking the body from the outset as the central factor of the actions, with the opinions and sentiments as secondary to this. That is to say, it is through the actions, to which the body is subject, that the great message of the play is carried. The actors were for their part almost static, and insofar as speech was separated from obvious gesture, the power of Shaw’s text, denuded of all sensuality, was thus given full presence almost to the point of being hypnotic.
The director completely respected Shaw’s ascetic intention in privileging deeds as the carrier of ideas rather than these being sentimentalised states derived from the soul. Here it is Joan (excellently portrayed by Odila Caminos) who personifies an ideology, dear to Shaw: the power of action and the commonsense of the Maid are not encumbered by the sentimentality that he abominated. Addressing this, the actress made us forget very quickly her youth and prettiness by fascinating us with her political and personal drive. In parallel it is both necessary to remember that the historical Joan existed, and that the depiction of her in Shaw’s text removes her sensuality. The audience will thus better appreciate that the actress has authoritatively succeeded in engaging it by her understanding of military strategy and power of expression, rather than by her womanly body. The body of Joan is made for battle, military authority and the defence of the French throne, not for love. It was through this interpretation, and that it seemed to us that Odila Caminos faithfully incarnated the Joan of Shaw’s words.
Bergson used to say that a living being was primarily a doing being: ‘I perceive through activity’ – although one can say that over the voices that Joan listens to, one can hear that above all she personifies commonsense as Bernard Shaw understood it. This commonsense and the power to do things possessed by Joan, confer upon her a degree of liberty that neither King Charles nor the clergy, and the nobility even less, either have or can achieve. In short, Joan’ s strength and willpower make her a free agent right up to the flames. That is why this play, in all its great æsthetic severity, spotlights the clarity and liberty of being with which Joan of Arc faces her accusers.
2.
Concerning the freewill
of St Joan in the work of Shaw and the production by Marie Véronique Raban
Nietzsche said ‘My wishes always arrive as a liberating force, bringing me pleasure. To wish is to be liberated: that is the true doctrine of will and liberty’ (Thus Spake Zarathustra). We have chosen to quote Nietzsche and Bergson because they were Shaw’s contemporaries and because St Joan represents the active ideal that they advocated. In this production it became clear how the very minimalist set and the costumes appropriate to each protagonist were made to bring out to an extraordinary degree the problem of will in the person of Joan, and the power of a hypothesis where there were no sets or costumes to disguise an inadequate idea. The adaptation was faithful to a certain ‘protestant’ rigour in Shaw; the decor (or absence of décor?) left the audience in control of their own imagination, because made to ‘invent’ the colouring of each event.
Joan’s words were themselves forcefully and freely expressed and bore her spontanæous and free decisions. This vigour never weakened throughout the production and very time it appeared it conveyed the assertiveness of Shaw as much as that of Joan.
Nietzsche would say to this that the will always reveals itself before the process of command in which the ‘I’ is only the superficial expression of a complex play of interactive forces. That is what leads us to give priority to the necessity of will power, and it is this that manifests itself in the determination of Joan of Arc. This has the effect of making her enforce the dictates of her urge to dominance contrary to her instincts, to those of the king, those of the English or even those of the Church. To be clear, Bernard Shaw, in honouring this willpower in Joan, has perceived in the role of the Maid a destiny not only beyond the ordinary, but one which overcomes her personal interests, and counter to the all the policy of her age. And it is this alone that makes of her a personage ‘superior’ in both historical and human terms.
In this production, the meticulous and precise adherence to Shaw’s text allows one to understand the level at which Shaw understood the pointlessness and stupidity of putting Joan to death: each actor evoked with intelligence to what degree the nobles, the great men and the religious had been opportunists, cowards without any effective political strategy. The will and the beliefs of Joan called up on the spot (and four hundred years later!) the greatness of her military and political design. Shaw pays homage to the woman as much as to the genius, and foregrounds the rightness of her orders in serving the course of French history.
Her trial in this reading appeared strange and terrifying at the same time. The silences were impressive because it is thus that Shaw underlines how much this trial for heresy is itself out of order, and if the actors carried complete conviction it is because they respected one of the wishes most dear to Shaw: that each among them should understand the meaning of the play, that they understand for themselves so that in its turn the public can make out the game of all the interactions played out on stage…
3.
The question of Morality in Saint Joan
Putting on stage the struggles and putting to death of Joan of Arc demands that those responsible put the question of an ultimate ‘moral lesson’ in Shaw’s work. There should be no mistaking this: the moral is often a collection of tenets which allow the escape of reality, of clearcut responsibilities through the distortion of lies ready to be digested without considering. Thus Shaw puts into action the decision by Joan to compel the people to take upon themselves so serious a deed and verdict as the death penalty. He likes to question the origins of value judgments, to detect the motives hidden from one another, to the gain of Life itself! Shaw demonstrates perfectly that the story of the Maid is a looking glass, in which every human being is right to question him or herself on the foundations of Power as established in all its forms and in every age.
In this sense, Shaw’s play does not encumber itself with coded discourse: it is crystal-clear and orchestrated by the hand of a master. When Joan is brought back to life, she is at peace with herself and shows no hatred towards the cowards who forsook her. It is left to each to question himself on his own life-denying instincts, to each to seek to ‘increase himself’, as Nietzsche put it.
This was ably considered by Shaw, not to play the game of the moralisers by contenting himself to indicate what was ‘good or bad’ in the fate of the Maid of France. That was the intention of the Inquisitors and the sophists who surrounded her. What was important to Bernard Shaw was not the well-meant thoughts but the reality of good actions.
The king in his bed who hides himself in his blue sheet becomes automatically ridiculous, and both the Inquisitor and his abrupt discourse are the embodiment of what is both arbitrary and absurd. Only the soldier who has been at ease with himself for his simple gesture of offering Joan some sort of cross when facing the pyre will explain himself in simple reasoning:
‘They were going to burn her. She had as good right to a cross as they had; and they had dozens of them. It was her funeral, not theirs. Where was the harm in it?’
In this way, Shaw pays tribute to acts of commonsense and denounces in no uncertain manner the power of ‘great’ men; but above all he invites us to be aware that the story of Joan of Arc demonstrates the cruelty and lack of intelligence in those who govern, not that this report has ceased to correspond with actuality…
One leaves this play by Shaw, sad, but somewhat more enlightened.
Remarques
sur la pièce « Sainte Jeanne » de Bernard Shaw
« Sainte Jeanne » et le rapport au corps dans la pièce de Shaw :
La première impression
qui ressort de l’interprétation de cette pièce de Bernard Shaw, est que
la façon d’appréhender les actes et les corps, (jusqu’au corps
brûlé de Jeanne D’Arc), suppose que le corps est d’abord un centre
d’action où les sentiments ont une place secondaire, c’est-à-dire
que les actes auxquels obéit le corps sont porteurs d’une grande mission.
Les comédiens étaient à leur place, presque statiques et pourtant une force
évidente se dégageait de leur phrasé , la force du
texte de Shaw, dénuée de toute sensualité, était pourtant bien présente, quasi
hypnotique.
Le metteur en scène a
parfaitement respecté l’ascétisme et l’importance des faits vus par
Shaw, qui admire avant tout la portée des idées et des actes s’y
rapportant, plus que les états d’âmes sentimentalistes. C’est
Jeanne (excellente Odila Camino) qui porte en elle une
« idéologie » chère à Bernard Shaw : la force d’agir
et le bon sens qui ont motivé la Pucelle ne s’embarrassent pas de cette sentimentalité
qu’il exécrait. A ce sujet, la comédienne, nous fait très vite oublier
son jeune âge et sa joliesse pour nous fasciner par sa détermination politique
et physique. Dans un même mouvement il faut alors se souvenir que le personnage
ayant existé et la description qu’en fait Shaw dans son texte était dénué
de sensualité : le spectateur aura donc pu apprécié le fait que la
comédienne aura magistralement réussi à nous fasciner par ses convictions de
stratégie militaire et sa diction parfaite davantage que son corps de femme. Le
corps de Jeanne était fait pour la bataille, l’autorité militaire et la
défense du trône de France ; pas pour l’amour. Dans cette
interprétation et dans les mots de Shaw, c’est une évidence, c’est
pourquoi Odila Camino nous semblait
être une fidèle incarnation.
Bergson disait
qu’un être vivant est d’abord un être agissant : « je
perçois en vue d’agir », et quoi que l’on puisse dire sur les
voix qu’entendait Jeanne, elle relève avant tout du bon sens selon
Bernard Shaw. Ce bon sens que possédait Jeanne et sa puissance agissante lui
confèrent un degré de liberté que ni le roi Charles, ni le clergé et
encore moins les notables n’auront saisi ni possédé. En un mot, la force
et la détermination de Jeanne font d’elle un être libre au-delà des
flammes. C’est pourquoi, cette pièce, dans sa grande sobriété esthétique
met en lumière exclusivement la lucidité et la liberté d’être de Jeanne
D’Arc face à ses détracteurs.
De la volonté de Jeanne
D’Arc dans l’œuvre de Shaw et la pièce de Marie Véronique
Raban :
Nietzsche disait :
« Mon vouloir me vient toujours comme ce qui me libère et m’apporte
la joie. Vouloir libère : telle est la véritable doctrine de la volonté et
de la liberté. » (Ainsi parlait
Zarathoustra).
Nous choisissons de citer
Bergson et Nietzsche parce qu’ils sont des contemporains de Bernard Shaw,
et que « Sainte Jeanne » est représentative de leur idéal actif. En
clair, le décor très minimaliste de la pièce et les propos tenus par
chaque protagoniste fait ressortir à merveille la question de la volonté chez
Jeanne D’Arc, et la force d’un propos sans que le décor, les tenues
n’aient à masquer l’insuffisance d’une idée. Le texte était
fidèle à une certaine rigueur « protestante » chez Bernard Shaw, le
décor (ou l’absence de décor ?) laissait les spectateurs maîtres
de leur imagination parce qu’ils devaient inventer les couleurs de
chaque évènement.
Les mots de Jeanne
étaient eux-mêmes violents, volontaires et porteurs de décisions libres
instantanées. Cette vigueur n’a jamais faibli tout au long de la pièce et
chaque intervention était à la hauteur de la virulence de Shaw, tout comme
celle de Jeanne.
Nietzsche disait à ce
propos que la volonté révélait avant tout un processus de commandement dont le
« moi » n’est que l’effet superficiel d’un jeu
complexe de rapports de force. Ce qui l’amènera à privilégier la
nécessité d’une volonté de puissance, celle qui se fait jour dans
le commandement de Jeanne D’Arc.
En effet, elle doit affronter des rapports de
domination contraires à ses intuitions ; celles du Roi, des Anglais ou
même du Clergé. En clair, Bernard Shaw, en honorant cette « volonté de
puissance » chez Jeanne D’arc, a perçu dans le rôle de la pucelle,
un destin hors du commun mais qui dépasse ses intérêts personnels, à
l’inverse de tout politique de son époque. Et cela seul fait d’elle
un être « supérieur » historique et humain.
Dans la pièce,
l’interprétation méticuleuse et précise du texte de Shaw permet de
réaliser à quel point Bernard Shaw comprenait l’absurdité et la
stupidité de la mise à mort de Jeanne : chaque comédien rappelait avec
intelligence à quel point les nobles, les notables et les religieux avaient été
opportunistes, lâches et sans stratégie politique efficace. La volonté
et les convictions de Jeanne feront apparaître sur –le- champ (et quatre
cent ans plus tard !) la grandeur de son dessein militaire et
politique. Bernard Shaw rend hommage à la femme en tant que génie et met
en lumière la justesse de ses ordres au service de l’histoire de France.
Son procès parait alors
insolite et terrifiant à la fois. Les silences sont imposant parce que
Shaw souligne combien ce procès pour hérésie est dérangeant, et si les
comédiens ont été si convaincants c’est parce qu’ils ont respecté
un des vœux les plus chers de Bernard Shaw : que chacun d’entre
eux comprennent le sens de leur jeu, se comprennent entre eux
pour que le public à son tour
entrevoie le jeu de tous les rapports de force mis en scène…
La question de la Morale dans
« Sainte Jeanne »
Mettre en scène les
combats et la mise à mort de Jeanne D’Arc demande à ce que l’on se
pose la question d’une éventuelle leçon de « morale » chez
Bernard Shaw. Pourtant, on ne doit pas se tromper : La morale est souvent
un ensemble de préceptes qui permettent
d’échapper à une réalité, à des responsabilités claires par le biais de mensonges
prêts à être digérés sans réflexion.
Or, Bernard Shaw met en évidence la volonté de Jeanne de contraindre
plutôt les humains à assumer un acte et une décision aussi grave que la
condamnation à mort. Il préfère interroger l’origine des jugements
de valeur, détecter les pulsions cachées des uns et des autres, au
profit de la Vie ! Bernard Shaw démontre parfaitement que l’histoire
de la pucelle est un miroir face auquel tout humain est en droit de
s’interroger sur les fondements du pouvoir établi sous toutes ses formes
et à toutes les époques.
En ce sens, la pièce de
Shaw ne s’embarrasse pas de discours codés : son expression est limpide
et orchestré de main de maître. Lorsque Jeanne « ressuscite », elle
est apaisée, en paix avec elle-même et ne manifeste pas de haine envers les
lâches qui l’ont abandonnée. C’est à chacun de s’interroger
sur ses propres instincts négateurs de la vie, à chacun de chercher à
« s’augmenter soi-même » comme dirait Nietzsche.
Ce qui est donc judicieux
de la part de Shaw, c’est de ne pas avoir fait le jeu des moralisateurs
en se contentant d’indiquer ce qui est bien ou mal dans le sort de
la pucelle de France. Cela était le propos des inquisiteurs et des sophistes
qui les entouraient. Ce qui importait Bernard Shaw, ce n’était pas les
bons sentiments, mais davantage l’action réelle bonne.
Le roi qui se couche et
se cache sous son drap bleu, le ridiculise automatiquement et
l’inquisiteur et son discours péremptoire sont l’incarnation de
l’absurde et de l’arbitraire. Seul le garde qui s’est contenté
d’un acte simple en offrant à Jeanne un semblant de croix face au bûcher
expliquera dans un raisonnement simple :
« Ils allaient la
brûler, elle avait autant le droit d’avoir la croix qu’eux. Eux ils
en avaient à la pelle. Et puis c’était ses funérailles à elle, pas les
leurs. Où était le mal ? »
Bernard Shaw rend alors
hommage aux actes de bon sens, fustige certes le pouvoir des
« grands » de ce monde, mais invite surtout à prendre conscience que
l’histoire de Jeanne D’Arc est révélatrice de la cruauté et de
l’absence d’intelligence des gouvernants, comme si ce constat ne
cessait pas d’être d’actualité…
On quitte la pièce de
Shaw, triste, mais un peu plus lucide.
Shaw
Season in Richmond, Surrey
18th October to 11th November and 27th November to
9th December: Major Barbara directed by Sam
Walters at The Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond
13th to 25th November The Shaw Triple Bills: Programme 1 Augustus Does His Bit;
O’Flaherty VC; Press Cuttings Programme 2: How He Lied to Her Husband; Overruled; Village
Wooing The Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond
11th to 16th December Shaw Readings The Orange Tree Theatre,
Richmond.
For further details see website http://www.orangetreetheatre.co.uk
Michael Friend has staged a number of
Shaw's plays at Shaw's Corner,
2. Shawlines
In this section we will print all the news that we find or, better still, are sent. We especially welcome news of Shaw on curricula.
We also wish to record articles and papers relating to the earlier Shaw, and news of new editions of Cashel Byron's Profession (1886), An Unsocial Socialist (1887), The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891), The Perfect Wagnerite (1898), Love Among the Artists (1900), as well as other related material.
a. Calls for Papers and Conferences
‘Bernard Shaw at 150: Theater, Criticism,
Contemporaneity’
The ISS at
the Modern Language Association Meeting, 27th to
Calls for papers has concluded for 2006.
In
acknowledgment of Bernard Shaw’s sesquicentennial, the International Shaw
Society is sponsoring a special session at the 2006 MLA December meeting that
will explore Shaw's writings, both dramatic and non-dramatic, in a contemporary
context. Since Shaw often figured himself as a prophet, in what ways did
Shaw anticipate twenty-first century approaches to drama, theater, performance,
social reform, politics, and critical and literary theory? How does Shaw's theatrical-critical project
still speak to us today? Approaches grounded in either
current events and mass culture (e.g., "Creative Evolution,"
“Creationism,” and “Intelligent Design” in
MLA members
can discover how to register for the 2006 MLA convention by going to http://www.mla.org/convention.
An ISS-Sponsored Special Session on ‘Shaw as Playwright’
at The 31st Annual Comparative Drama Conference, 29th,
30th &
Deadline for abstracts, c.v., and covering letter:
Send 300 word abstracts (with title)
preferably by email attachment to tstaffor@utep.edu
or tnyorzb@sbcglobal.net or by mail
to Dr. Tony Stafford, Department of English,
Conference Location: Marina Del Rey (
Sponsoring Institution:
Shaw Session Sponsored By: The International
Shaw Society, www.shawsociety.org
Conference
Director: Dr. Kevin Wetmore, Department of Theater Arts, Loyola Marymount
University, 311 Foley Theatre, 1 LMU Drive, MS 8210, Los Angeles CA
For details about this conference,
email Dr. Wetmore at kwetmore@lmu.edu or
check the CDC website at https://myweb.lmu.edu/compdrama
(when it’s up in July). Check www.shawsociety.org for links.
To register for this conference, send
email to compdram@lmu.edu and a
registration form will be sent to you.
Conference Fee: If pre-registered,
$89 for faculty and $79 for graduate students, $69 for session chairs, $59 for
guests. Add $10 if registering at the
conference.
The
Comparative Drama Conference originated in 1976 at the
2007
Shaw Symposium at the Shaw Festival in
Shaw Session at the 2007 MLA Meeting. Date and deadline to be announced.