A Bulletin for George Bernard
Shaw
October 2007
Chronologically, this is the fifth issue
of Shavings to appear on www.oscholars.com and the fifth for which
we are joined by our Associate Editor for Shavings,
Barbara Pfeifer of the
There has been a long gap since our last
issue of Shavings,
a variety of factors contributing. We believe the requirements for more regular
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– Oscar Wilde, quoted by Richard Le Gallienne: The Romantic Nineties. New edition. |
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1. The Plays |
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2. Shawlines c.
Conferences
d.
Publications
e. The Shrines
g. Posters
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These
are listed but information about them has been transferred to its own page |
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6. Tailpiece |
1. The Plays
In this section we try especially
but not exclusively 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 (
We have been improving our
coverage, and can now be more active in commissioning reviews. This page has been growing, and as with all
our journals, an amoeba like fission has become necessary. This is still experimental, but we are
putting this section on a separate page.
The features on this page are
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a. The Shaw Season at |
b.
The Shaw Season in |
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c.
The Shaw Season in |
d.
Shaw in |
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e.
More Shaw in |
f.
Shaw in |
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g.
More Shaw in |
h. Late Clippings and reviews |
To reach it, click here,
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. Richard Dietrich has circulated the following:
The consensus of
the letters below (from The Musical Times
in 1967) is that the author of the ‘Rum tum trumpledum’ song in SAINT JOAN
is Shaw himself. He seems to imply that when he has the soldier say
that "we made it up ourselves as we marched." Thanks to
Kay Li for finding this.
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b.
Arms and the Man in Turkey
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In February and March of 2007,
Robert Scogin, the Artistic Director of ShawChicago
,directed a Turkish language production as an entry in the Selcuk
University Second International Theater Festival. Titled in Turkish Silahar Ve Kahraman, this
was a production of the Turkish State Theater Conservatory which is situated
on the campus of |
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Production photographs may be found at http://shawchicago.blogspot.com/ |
c. Conferences, Seminars, Lectures and Calls for Papers
On Thursday,
17th May at Funger Hall,
We pass on the following list, received from Richard Dietrich:
1.) Fifth Annual Shaw Symposium at the Shaw Festival in
2.) Shaw Session at the MLA meeting in Chicago on 27-30 December 2007 “George Bernard Shaw and History” A Special
Session on Bernard Shaw at the Modern Language Association Convention in
Chicago, Dec. 27-30, 2007, Sponsored by the
International Shaw Society. The “Call for Papers” has
concluded for 2007, but anyone attending the 2007 MLA conference is welcome to
attend the special Shaw session, # 603, which will take place 7:15 to 8:30 pm,
Saturday, 29 December, in Skyway Suite 265 of the Chicago Hyatt Regency. You
can discover how to register for the 2006 MLA convention by going to http://www.mla.org/convention.
Presiding: Charles J. Del Dotto,
Speakers:
1. "'Without History': Shakespeare, Romance, and Violence in Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra," Charles J. Del Dotto.
2. "Cart and Trumpet
Histories: Shaw, Melodrama, and the Imperial Archive," Neil Hultgren,
3. "Shaw's Arms and the Man
and Bulgarian History," Stoyan Tchaprazov,
4. "Willing Evolution: Shaw,
Lamarck, and Modernism in the 1920s," Hannah Tracy,
Details available online at www.shawsociety.org/2007-Shaw-at-MLA.htm.
3.) Shaw Session at the Comparative Drama Conference in
4.) CALL FOR PAPERS for "Feminism Revisits Shaw,"
co-edited by Dorothy Hadfield and Jean Reynolds Please submit a 750-word
abstract and a short biographical note (preferably via email) by
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Dorothy Hadfield dhadfiel@uoguelph.ca) |
or Jean Reynolds (ballroom16@aol.com) 520 Winter Terrace, |
For other details, go to www.shawsociety.org
for a link
5.) Shaw Session at
the Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) Conference in
TOPIC: "Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion."
Call for papers. You
may write on the original play, the stage or movie version My Fair Lady, the
Pygmalion/Galatea myth, or on GBS's magical creations, Eliza Doolittle & Henry Higgins. You may treat these all
together or just a single one. All interpretations will be considered:
Mythic, dramatic , musical, psycho-analytic, feminist,
or personal response, etc. To foster discussion, accepted panelists must keep
strictly to 15-minute presentations. Submit a 100-150 abstract with brief
Curriculum Vita via eMail to Ted Price,
SHAW SEMINAR IN BRIONI, June 2008: For information, please click here. If interested, please email dietrich@cas.usf.edu.
d. Publications & Papers
Barry Morse with Anthony
Wynn and Robert E. Wood. Remember with
Advantages: Chasing The Fugitive and
Other Stories from an Actor’s Life.
Reviewed by
Barbara Pfeifer
Seasons to Remember
Ever since he won a scholarship at the prestigious
Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts by reading a passage from Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, Barry Morse’s extraordinary
career in show business has been inextricably linked with the life and works of
the great Irish playwright. On several occasions, Morse has even played the
role of Shaw, ‘the man who has probably had the most effect on me’ (p. 4),
perhaps most memorably in Anthony Wynn’s two-act, two-actor drama Bernard and Bosie: A
Most Unlikely Friendship.
Now Wynn, who also created the stage show An Evening with Barry Morse, based on
Morse’s life and professional experience, and Robert E. Wood have assisted the
actor in writing his autobiography, which provides a detailed account of a
career that spans almost eight decades. In chronological order, the book not
only meticulously follows Barry’s professional career, but also offers valuable
insight into the actor’s private life. His memoirs of his 60-year-marriage to
fellow actress Sydney Sturgess, who joined her husband in several theatrical
performances, are particularly touching. Morse’s narration is perfectly
complemented by an extensive amount of photos. The book presents private
snapshots as well as pictures taken from stage performances and television
shows, thus impressively illustrating the actor’s successful career. Though
Morse is probably best known to a contemporary audience for his television
roles in The Fugitive and Space: 1999, the book also provides an
accurate record of the actor’s rich theatrical background, which involved the
acquaintance with leading theatrical figures of the time, among them Sibyl
Thorndyke, John Gielgud, and Noel Coward.
His meeting with Shaw at the Royal Academy of Dramatic
Arts – ‘me, a snotty-nosed kid, being called Mr. Morse by Bernard Shaw’ -,
however, has exerted a long-lasting influence on Morse’s life and culminated in
his being appointed artistic director of the Shaw Festival of Canada in 1966. As Morse puts it, ‘I’d been a dedicated Shavian for as long as I’d
been in our profession’ (p. 122). In any case, the actor’s
comprehensible autobiography is highly recommendable to both Shavians and theatrre
historians.
Announcing...
Kay Li: Bernard Shaw and
e. The Shrines
Shaw’s Corner at
House and garden re-opened for the season on St Patrick’s Day, 17th
March and will closed again for the winter on
28th October.
Click the picture to find their website; the e-address is shawscorner@nationaltrust.org.uk.
© NTPL / Matthew Antrobus
The Shaw Birthplace
in
where it is ridiculously described as having
been restored to its ‘Victorian glory’.
It can be contacted at shawhouse@dublintourism.ie
f. Shaw in Italian
An International Shaw Society member from
g. Posters
We have been showing posters that the Footlights Gallery have for
sale, and in future when these are no longer on offer we place them on a
Posterwall with a link from here. We shall also add posters from current
productions as they come to hand.
The
following are currently to be found on the Footlights Gallery website.
>
FOOTLIGHTS Gallery & Gifts
Phone & Fax: 541-488-5538
(Voice:
E-mail: footlite@cdsnet.net.
AllPosters (www.allposters.com) are also offering this reproduction of a photograph (‘Digitally Printed on Archival
Photographic Paper resulting in vivid, pure color and exceptional detail that
is suitable for museum or gallery display’):
3. Echoes of Oscar
Or, When Shaw texted Wilde
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‘It is almost incredible that Oscar’s
essays and novels and dramas should not have had an effect upon the mind and
conceptions of a man like Shaw’. – H.M. Hyndman: Further
Reminiscences. |
This section of Shavings
takes up the challenge implicit in Hyndman’s statement and explores textual
similarities in the work of the two writers.
We will add to this from time to time, and readers are warmly invited to
contribute their own aperçus. Formerly
incorporated into this main section of Shavings,
it now has its own page, reached by clicking here. New lines will be announced here, and then
transferred.
4. Bibliographies & Links
This section (a. GBS for Wildeans: A Bibliography of 19th century
Shaw; b. Websites
and blogs) has now also been recreated on its own page, reached by clicking here. New items will be announced here and then
transferred. Do please draw our
attention to new publications, especially articles in learned journals.
GBShaw_and_Friends
is a discussion group housed at GBShaw_and_Friends-owner@yahoogroups.com. We recently (
Welcome to GBShaw_and_Friends. I hope that this group will promote the life and works of George Bernard Shaw and his Contemporaries. Contributions welcome. The more we share about this great man and his works, the better the promotion he receives. His lifetime marked great changes in society, in theatre, and in life in general.
Surprisingly, this group has only thirty-nine members.
We also applied to another ‘yahoo’ group: the ‘George bernard Shaw social Group for those who are truely interested in the life & work of Bernard shaw. Diane Uttley President of the Bernard Shaw Information & Research Service www.georgebernardshaw.com was Custodian of & lived at Shaw's home Shaw's Corner from 1989 to 1997. Diane is a Shaw Expert/Writer on GBS’. (Spelling as given)
We received the following reply:
Hello,
Your request to join the bernardshawgroup group was not approved. Your membership was automatically rejected
because the moderator didn't
approve it within 14 days. We do this to provide a high quality of service for
our users. If you want, you may attempt
to join this group again. You may find
other groups to join by searching or browsing the Groups directory: http://groups.yahoo.com.
If you would like to create your own group, please visit:
http://groups.yahoo.com/start. Thank you for choosing Yahoo! Groups.
Regards,
Yahoo! Groups Customer Care
Not surprisingly, this group has only five members.
5. SHAW ASSOCIATIONS
Those
known to us are as follows, and information about them, previously given here,
is now found on a separate page.
a. The International Shaw Society
b. The Shaw Society
c. The Bernard Shaw Society & The Independent Shavian
d. The
e. The Shaw Societies of
6. TAILPIECE
‘George Moore [..,] reflected, didn’t all middle-class writers in
– Adrian
Frazier: George Moore 1852-1933. New Haven & London:
Yale University Press 2000 p.243.