A Bulletin for George Bernard Shaw


February 2007


 

Chronologically, this is the first issue of Shavings to appear on www.oscholars.com and the first for which we are joined by our new Associate Editor for Shavings, Barbara Pfeifer of the University of Vienna.

Readers of Shavings may participate in the discussion forum set up for all readers of the oscholars group of journals by clicking its icon .  There is a short registration procedure, as with all such groups.  This forum will also serve for posting notice of events that occur between issues of the journals, Calls for Papers etc.

 

'Oh, Shaw! That's the man who smokes Jaeger cigarettes!'

         Oscar Wilde, quoted by Richard Le Gallienne: The Romantic Nineties.  New edition.  London: Putnam & Co.  1951 p.81.

 

 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.  The Plays

a.      The Shaw Season at Niagara

b.       The Shaw Season in Chicago

c.       The Shaw Season in New York

d.       Shaw in Vienna

e.      Late Clippings: My Fair Lady – Pygmalion – The Devil’s Disciple – Shaw’s ‘Shorts’

2.  Shawlines

a.      Conferences

b.       Publications

c.       The Shrines

d.       Posters

3.  Echoes of Oscar

4.  Bibliographies and Links

5.  Shaw Associations

a.  The International Shaw Society

b.  The Shaw Society

c.  The Bernard Shaw Society & The Independent Shavian

d.  The Dublin Shaw Society

e.  The Shaw Society of Japan

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 (20th April 1894).  Apart from those listed at Niagara-on-the-Lake and in Chicago, Shaw’s twentieth century plays are noticed in Late Clippings.

   

a.  The Shaw Festival

The 2007 Season will see The Philanderer (1st May to 7th October) and St Joan (21st April to 27th October).  We can also mention Lady Gregory’s Kiltartan Comedies (20th June to 6th October), The Cassilis Engagement by St John Hankin, and Feydeau’s Hotel Peccadillo.

The 2006 season included Arms and the Man and Too True to be Good.

b.  The Shaw Season in Chicago

Information from the Shaw Chicago Theatre Company at http://www.shawchicago.org/

 

Performance

Show Dates

Location

Show Times

Information

Love Scenes*
(Outreach Performance)

February 28, 2007

Ela Area Public Library

7:00pm

Open to the Public

Shaw vs. Shakespeare:
A Meeting of
the Minds*

March 13, 2007

Trinity Christian College

7:00pm

Open to the Public

Women of Shaw: Strong, Smart, and Unsatisfied!*
(Outreach Performance)

April 19, 2007

Calumet Park Library

7:00pm

Open to the Public
Call (708) 862-6220

Caesar & Cleopatra

April 14-May 7, 2007

Studio Theater,
Chicago Cultural Center

various

Ticket Information
 coming soon

Shaw vs. Shakespeare:
A Meeting of
the Minds*

May 24, 2007

The Newberry Library

6:00pm

Open to the Public

* Performances are no charge

For information on all performances,
please call 312-587-7390


c.  The Shaw Season in New York

The Gingold Theatrical Group, directed by David Staller, is giving a reading of a Shaw play at The Players, 16 Gramercy Park South every month.  The schedule is

 

19th February 2007 @ 7.00 p.m.

THE MUSIC CURE & INTERLUDE at the PLAYHOUSE

19th March 2007 @ 7.00 p.m.

DOCTOR'S DILEMMA

23rd April 2007 @ 7.00 p.m.

ANDROCLES AND THE LION

21st May 2007 @ 7.00 p.m.

ADMIRABLE BASHVILLE

18th June 2007 @ 7.00 p.m.

VILLAGE WOOING & HOW HE LIED TO HER HUSBAND

23rd July 2007 @ 7.00 p.m.

THE MILLIONAIRESS

17th September 2007 @ 7.00 p.m.

MAN AND SUPERMAN

22nd October 2007 @ 7.00 p.m.

PRESS CUTTINGS &  PASSION, POISON and PETRIFACTION

19th November 2007 @ 7.00 p.m.

WIDOWERS HOUSES

17th December 2007 @ 7.00 p.m.

PYGMALION

More information can be found at http://projectshaw.com/.  We thank Richard Dietrich for alerting us to this, and for sending us the following note:

 

David Staller's ‘Project Shaw’ in NYC, which is doing Shaw's entire dramatic corpus over three years, that being the amazing part.   Now that I've seen a production for myself, I have to let you know that this is ‘amazing’ in many other ways as well, and you should kick yourself if you don't see it.  First of all, the location, the Players Club in Gramercy Park, is worth a visit all by itself.   Established by Edwin Booth, this place serves as some sort of unofficial Hall of Fame for American actors, whose portraits line the wall.   That may be one reason that Staller is able to get some of the best actors, mostly of the Broadway and Hollywood type, to do these once-a-month concert readings.  For free!   They do it for the love of it and the enjoyment they get.   The actors do this also because Monday night is a night off in the theater, but the effort and talent and skill that goes into this suggests a residue of interest in Shaw by actors that is not apparent in the major theaters.  I witnessed on Feb. 19th some delightfully intelligent presentations of three one-acts (perhaps the only Shaw plays I've never seen acted!) of ‘Interlude at the Playhouse,’ ‘The King, the Constitution, and the Lady,’ and ‘The Music Cure,’ starring Marian Seldes and, lo and behold, Paxton Whitehead, the man whose playing of Shavian roles at the Shaw Festival in the 70s was instrumental in our making visits there a holy habit.   At the end of this performance, a lady behind us exclaimed, in a surprised voice, ‘This is better than Broadway!’  

Tickets are available online by credit card at http://www.projectshaw.com/ and by calling 212-352-3101.   $15 per ticket, going on sale the first of every month (the production is the third Monday of every month, for at least another year).   And they sell out fast.   In April, most of the major theater critics in the New York area will be cast as the Christians who are thrown to the lions in ANDROCLES IN THE LION.   Don't miss that! 


d.  Shaw in Vienna

Arms and the Man

… was produced at the English Theatre, Vienna, 6th November to 22nd December 2006.  Barbara Pfeifer has sent us the information that you will find information on the cast as well as pictures directly taken from one of the performances on the website http://www.englishtheatre.at/English/Saison06-07/ArmsAndTheMan/main2.html

 

Olivia Wright

Raina Petkoff

Kate Dove

Catherine Petkoff

Marianne Permaul

Louka

Christopher Buchholz

Captain Bluntschli

Howard Nightingall

Russian Officer

Timothy Speyer

Nicola

Roger Forbes

Major Paul Petkoff

Tom Sykes

Major Sergius Saranoff

Director

Philip Dart

Designer

Alison Hefferman

 


f.  Late clippings:

Pygmalion

The very successful Paris production opens on 17th March at the Théâtre de Vevey, Vevey, Switzerland.

Director: Nicolas Briançon. Décor: Jean-Marc Stehlé. Costumes: Michel Fresnay. Production: CADO Centre National de Création d’Orléans, Théâtre Comedia Paris. Cast: Barbara Schulz, Nicolas Vaude, Danielle Lebrun, Henri Courseaux, Jean-Claude Barbier, Odile Mallet, Catherine Alcover.  Understudies: Pierre-Alain Leleu, Fleur Houdinière, Bruno Henri, Maurine Nicot, Jean-Paul Lopez.  During its Paris run in 2006 it was reviewed, together with a Paris production of St Joan, in the autumn issue of The Independent Shavian.

 

The Washington Stage Guild (Washington, D.C., that is) announces

Shaw's Shorts – O'Flaherty V.C., The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, and The Man of Destiny.
Directed by John MacDonald.

1st March to 1st April 2007.

 

My Fair Lady

A production by the Wivenhoe Gilbert & Sullivan Society at the William Loveless Hall, Wivenhoe, England, runs from 27th February to 3rd March.

 

The Devil’s Disciple

… was broadcast on the wireless station BBC7 on Saturday March 10th.




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.  Conferences and Calls for Papers

‘Bernard Shaw at 150:  Theater, Criticism, Contemporaneity’

In acknowledgment of Bernard Shaw’s sesquicentennial, the International Shaw Society sponsored a special session at the 2006 MLA December Philadelphia meeting that explored Shaw's writings, both dramatic and non-dramatic, in a contemporary context.

 

 

An ISS-Sponsored Special Session on ‘Shaw as Playwright’ will be held at The 31st Annual Comparative Drama Conference, 29th, 30th & 31st March 2007.

 

Conference Location: Marina Del Rey (Los Angeles), California.

Sponsoring Institution: Loyola Marymount University

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 90045-2659    Phones: Office: 310.338.7831 FAX: 310.338.1984.

 

For details about this conference, email Dr. Wetmore at kwetmore@lmu.edu or check the CDC website at https://myweb.lmu.edu/compdrama.  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 University of Florida, and, after 24 years, moved to The Ohio State University where it was held for five years. It moved to the Los Angeles area in 2005. The conference is open to all aspects of theatre, with a strong emphasis on dramatic texts. The publication of the conference is Text and Presentation

 

Call for Papers for SHAW 28: Shaw and War.  

 

SHAW is The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies and is published in hard bound in the Fall.   Below the Guest Editor for Volume 28 describes the sorts of papers she is looking for.  Deadline 15th May 2007.

SHAW 28: Shaw and War

Lagretta Tallent Lenker, Guest Editor


Perhaps more than any other playwright of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Bernard Shaw, in many of his controversial dramas, probes the age-old ambivalence of humanity toward war.  Although himself opposed to war, Shaw could comprehend and brilliantly dramatize society's love affair with violence and combat, even as he satirizes this often fatal liaison.