A Bulletin for George Bernard Shaw


November/ December 2006


 

With the new series of THE OSCHOLARS which began in October 2006, 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.irishdiaspora.net, the site for Irish and other diaspora studies owned by Dr 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, although 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.

 

'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.

 

 

Click  for the last issue of Shavings (October/November 2006); click    for the Table of Contents of this issue; click  to return to the Shavings home page. Clicking   will return you to our hub page with links to all our publications. 

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Note: Subscribers to THE OSCHOLARS (including Shavings) have their names printed in bold, and can be contacted through us at melmoth@aliceadsl.fr.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.  The Plays

a.      The Shaw Season at Niagara

b.       The Shaw Season in Chicago

c.       Late clippings

2.  Shawlines

a.      Conferences

b.       Shaw at 150

c.       Lectures

d.       Publications

e.      The Shrines

f.        Exhibition + Review by Julie Ann Stevens

g.       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

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.

   

1.      The Shaw Festival

For 2006 at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, has now closed.  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.

2.      The Shaw Season in Chicago

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

Performance

Show Dates

Location

Show Times

Information

Village Wooing*
(Outreach Performance)

February 4, 2007

Flossmoor Public Library

2: 00 p.m.

Open to the Public

Love Scenes
(Outreach Performance)

February 6, 2007

Schaumburg Library

7: 00 p.m.

Open to the Public

Shaw vs. Shakespeare:
A Meeting of
the Minds*

February 10, 2007

LaGrange Park Library

3:30pm

Open to the Public

Love Scenes*
(Outreach Performance)

February 11, 2007

Indian Trails Public Library

2: 00 p.m.

Open to the Public

Love Scenes*
(Outreach Performance)

February 11, 2007

Lake Villa District Library

2: 00 p.m.

Open to the Public

Love Scenes*
(Outreach Performance)

February 14, 2007

Rockford Public Library

7: 00 p.m.

Open to the Public

Village Wooing*
(Outreach Performance)

February 15, 2007

Calumet Park Library

7: 00 p.m.

Open to the Public
Call (708) 862-6220

Village Wooing*
(Outreach Performance)

February 18, 2007

Addison Public Library

2: 00 p.m.

Open to the Public

Love Scenes
(Outreach Performance)

February 26, 2007

The 19th Century Club

1: 00 p.m.

Private Event

Love Scenes*
(Outreach Performance)

February 28, 2007

Ela Area Public Library

7: 00 p.m.

Open to the Public

Shaw vs. Shakespeare:
A Meeting of
the Minds*

March 13, 2007

Trinity Christian College

7: 00 p.m.

Open to the Public

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

April 19, 2007

Calumet Park Library

7: 00 p.m.

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: 00 p.m.

Open to the Public

* Performances are no charge

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


3.  Late clippings:

Misalliance

Directed by Chris Coleman, this will be played at Portland Center Stage (Gerding Theater), 128 NW Eleventh Avenue, Portland, Oregon 9th January - 4th February 2007.

 

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.

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.

 


 



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.

3.      a.  Calls for Papers and Conferences

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

The ISS at the Modern Language Association Meeting, 27th to 30th December 2006, Philadelphia.

 

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 Kansas and Dover, Pennsylvania) or contemporary (inter)disciplinary and theoretical discourses (e.g., Back to Methuselah and the Post-Human) are encouraged.   Other possibilities for areas of discussion include stage practices and metadrama; gender roles, family issues, and marriage; social class, poverty, and war; religion and “Science Studies;” deconstruction, poststructuralism, and the death of theory; depth psychology; narrative, history, literary/dramatic historiography, and periodization; film, video, television, hypertext, and other New Media, etc.     

 

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 & 31st March 2007.

 

Conference Location: Marina Del Rey (Los Angeles), California.   Conference hotel to be determined.

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 (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 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

 

2007 Shaw Symposium at the Shaw Festival in Ontario, 29th, 30th, 31st July. Deadline for proposals to be announced.

 

Shaw Session at the 2007 MLA Meeting.  Date and deadline to be announced.

For abstracts and photos from the June 2006 Shaw Conference at Brown University, please see http://www.shawsociety.org/Brown-Abstracts-TOC.htm and http://www.shawsociety.org/Brown-photos-2.htm.  


b.  Shaw at 150

For photos of the Shaw birthday celebrations in London and Dublin, July 2006, please see http://www.shawsociety.org/Shaw’s-Birthday-UK-Dublin.htm.


c.  Lectures

On 23rd August 2006 Ivan Wise gave a lecture to the William Morris Society of Canada on ‘Shaw's Debt to Morris’, at the Textile Museum of Canada, Toronto, Ontario.  On 5th October at the National Portrait Gallery in London, continuing the series of talks celebrating the anniversaries of renowned literary figures, the writer and biographer, Michael Holroyd, author of an acclaimed biography on Shaw, was ‘in discussion’ with Roy Foster, Professor of Irish History at Oxford University.

 


d.  Publications & Papers

We hope readers will draw our attention to their publications and papers on Shaw,

 

We note the paper given at the fin-de-siècle Conference at Magdalene College, Cambridge in July 2006 by Hannes Schweiger, doctoral candidate, University of Vienna, Austria ‘Between the Lines. George Bernard Shaw as cultural and political mediator’.  For the abstract click here.

 


e.  The Shrines

Shaw’s Corner at Ayot St Lawrence (‘See the great dramatist’s revolving Writing Hut’) closed for the season on 29th October.  It has developed a website (click the picture), and it can be reached at shawscorner@nationaltrust.org.uk.  A small secondhand bookshop opened summer 2006.

 

 

© NTPL / Matthew Antrobus

 

The Shaw Birthplace in Synge Street, Dublin closed for the season on Sunday 1st October 2006 and will re-open in May 2007.  It can be contacted at shawhouse@dublintourism.ie

 


f.  Exhibition

An exhibition devoted to GBS runs until the end of the year in the National Gallery, Dublin.  It has been reviewed for us by Julie Ann Stevens.

 

A life-sized bronze statue of George Bernard Shaw stands at the end of the Beit wing in the National Gallery of Ireland. Posed as though in the middle of a speech, Shaw dominates the space, lording it over the British portraits that line the wall alongside him. He stands tall and slim in his softly draped suit, a kind of modern-day Mephistopheles with moustaches twisted as sharp as flickering flames and an expression of intent interest on his face. He hardly looks the 71 years that he was when the Russian sculptor Paul Troubetzkoy modelled him from life in 1927. His prominent position in the stately rooms of the Beit wing is long overdue. After all, since his death in 1950 the Gallery’s purchase of substantial artwork (including no less than 77 paintings) came about because of the Shaw Fund. A significant contribution to the recent extension was also drawn from this Fund.

                                                                                                                                                                       

The small exhibition of Shaw portraiture in the National Gallery of Ireland is the 150th anniversary tribute to one of Ireland’s most significant contributors to the visual arts. Shaw left a third of his posthumous royalties to the Gallery and the success of works such as the musical adaptation of Pygmalion, My Fair Lady, led to a rich vein of wealth trickling serious money into the Gallery’s life. As Adrian Le Harivel notes in the exhibition brochure, ‘the Shaw Fund was to be the major source for new acquisitions . . .  from Giovanni di Paolo, and Gérard to Signac and Pissarro’.

 

The Troubetzkoy statue is the most notable item in the exhibition. The more familiar picture of Shaw by the British painter, John Collier, part of the permanent collection and given to the Gallery by Shaw’s West Cork wife, Charlotte Payne-Townshend, provides a very different aspect of the man, one that is much more venerable and sedate. A further 8 or so small reproductions of Shaw portraits and caricatures line the room, a modest number given the fact that over 30 artists depicted the Irish dramatist. A reproduction of Bernard Partridge’s 1894 watercolour of Shaw on the set of Arms and the Man at the Avenue Theatre in London and a photograph of Auguste Rodin’s 1906 bronze head of the dramatist have been included in the exhibit. Le Harivel’s brochure tells us that ‘Rodin flattered Shaw by describing him as having a head like Christ’s, then, subsequently, more like the devil’. Shaw, apparently, appreciated the comparisons. In addition to the reproductions is a much later bronze bust by the South African sculptor Joseph Coplans and dated 1952. According to Coplans, the head was executed from observation and according to swiftly executed sketches of Shaw—certainly the vigorous moulding of the features gives great animation to the face with its large bushy brows hooding eyes that squint in humour.

 

There are so many portraits of Shaw one might wonder how it is possible to discern his character. Max Beerbohm’s caricatures of Shaw (he made over 40), Augustus John’s head and shoulder portraits and John Lavery’s painting of Shaw in a book-lined room present very different views of the man. Thomas Carlyle maintained that the portrait acted like a ‘lighted candle’ by which one might read the biography of the subject. And yet Carlyle—like George Bernard Shaw—was depicted in many different ways and by various artists so that—rather ironically—it becomes difficult to assess the ‘real’ man by his face alone. Shaw believed that spontaneity in portraits was what mattered, and perhaps his biography might be considered as a series of flashing pictures rather than one particular study.

 

v             Julie Anne Stevens lectures in Trinity College Dublin and St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra. Irish Academic Press is publishing her book on the art and fiction of the nineteenth century writers Edith Somerville and Martin Ross this winter: The Irish Scene in Somerville and Ross.]

 


g.  Posters

The Footlights Gallery offers the following for sale:

 

TITLE

COMMENTS

 Arms and the Man

Roundabout Theatre production.  Directed by Roger Rees

 Major Barbara

Roundabout Theatre Company revival with Cherry Jones. Art by Scott McKowen

Pygmalion 

 With Peter O'Toole at the Plymouth Theater

 

 FOOTLIGHTS Gallery & Gifts

240 East Main Street, Ashland, OR 97520 USA

Phone & Fax: 541-488-5538

(Voice: 10 a.m.- 6 p.m. Pacific Time, 18:00-2:00 UTC; Fax: 24 hours)

E-mail: footlite@cdsnet.net.


 



 

3.  Echoes of Oscar

Or, When Shaw texted Wilde

 

‘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.  London: Macmillan 1912 p.221.

 

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 apercus.  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 it own page, reached by clicking here.  New items will be announced here and then transferred.  Do please draw our attention to new publications.

 

Added this month:

 

Christopher S. Nassaar: ‘Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan and Shaw's Mrs Warren's Profession, in The Explicator, Vol.  56 (Spring 1998), 137-138.  Argues that Wilde's play is a chief influence on Shaw's.

 


 



5.  SHAW ASSOCIATIONS

a.  The International Shaw Society

The early days of the ISS were chronicled in Shavings as the Society was being formed.  It created a website at http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~dietrich/international_shaw_society/index.html, but this was not updated after 2003 and thus remains in the words of its leading article ‘strictly experimental and illustrative’, being replaced by The International Shaw Society Newsletter and Bulletin Board first at http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~dietrich/iss.htm and now at www.shawsociety.org.  This is a fully developed website, partly restricted to members of the iss but with much information on open access.  The Society’s current executive is

R. F. Dietrich,  President

dietrich@chuma1.cas.usf.edu

Don Wilmeth,  Vice President

Don_Wilmeth@brown.edu

Lagretta Lenker, Treasurer

Llenker@admin.usf.edu

Norma Jenckes,

Recording Secretary

norma.jenckes@uc.edu  

Lori Ruse-Dietrich,

Membership Secretary

lruse@tampabay.rr.com

We will carry news of the activities of the ISS as it comes to hand.


b.  The Shaw Society of England

The website of the English Society formerly at http://www.shawsociety.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk has been redesigned and moved to http://www.shawsociety.org.uk.  The Shaw Society was founded on 26th July 1941, Bernard Shaw's eighty-fifth birthday.  He wanted nothing to do with the idea…

 

The society meets in London every month for lectures and play readings, on the final Friday of the month (January to June and September to November) at 6:30 p.m. at Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London.  Its journal, The Shavian (edited by Ivan Wise), is produced approximately every 9 months, and The Newsletter (edited by Philip Riley) three times a year: New Year, Spring and Autumn.

 

Coming events:

At Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London

26th January 2007 News from Shaw’s Corner from Paul Williamson, National Trust Custodian for Shaw’s Corner

23rd February 2007 Annual General Meeting (members only)

 

Membership costs £15 per annum and for two people at the same address there is a family rate of £22 per annum. For overseas members US$30 or the equivalent. For further details contact Evelyn Ellis, Membership Secretary, The Shaw Society, 1 Buckland Court, 37 Belsize Park, London NW3 4EB +(0)20 7794 7014.  Tel/Fax: 020 7794 7014.   Email: shawsociety@blueyonder.co.uk.  

 


c.  The Bernard Shaw Society

This may be reached at P.O. Box 1159, Madison Square Station, New York, N.Y. 10159-1159: the website is http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~dietrich/shawsociety.html.  The current officers and advisory board are Richard Cordell, Edwin Burr Pettet, Richard Nickson (Presidents Emeriti), Rhoda Nathan (President), Daniel Leary (First Vice President), Sally Peters (Second Vice President), Douglas Laurie (Secretary), John Koontz (Treasurer); Jacques Barzun, Eric Bentley, Patrick Berry, Montgomery Davis, R. F. Dietrich, Howard Kissel, Maureen Murphy, Richard Nickson, Margot Peters, Jay R. Tunney, Robert Neff Williams (advisory board).  The Society publishes The Independent Shavian, edited by Patrick Berry.

 

The website (at http://independentshavian.org/independentshavian2.htm) no longer reproduces the cover, and the most recent (9th December) Table of Contents given is for volume 43, volumes 1-2, 2005.  This was published by us in Shavings 19.

 

For prior issues, click here.   The Independent Shavian appears three times a year and is sent to all members of the Bernard Shaw Society at no charge as part of their membership dues. To subscribe to the journal or to order this number, click here.

Note, 8th December 2006: it would appear that nothing has been added to either website for some time.


c.  The Dublin Shaw Society. 

This maintains no website but maybe contacted through the Hon. Chairman, Brian Mc Grath <bricar@gofree.indigo.ie>.  The Society meets on the third Wednesday of every month in the United Arts Club, 3 Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin 2.  Membership is 15 p.a., for an individual, €25 for a couple, although this information may be out of date: we have been unable to make recent contact.


 



6. TAILPIECE

 ‘Mr Shaw may or may not be flattered if I tell him that I find many points of resemblance between him and Oscar Wilde.  Both Shaw and Wilde are witty, and both set out to preach, and both do it well.  I put Wilde above Shaw, in the literary sense, simply because Wilde (at his best again) is a poet and Shaw is not.’

–Lord Alfred Douglas: Without Apology.  London: Martin Secker, publisher to The Richards Press 1938 p.85.


 



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