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
|
'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
The sign @ connects to an e-mail address.
Click
Note: Subscribers to THE OSCHOLARS (including Shavings) have their names printed in bold, and can be contacted through us at melmoth@aliceadsl.fr.
|
1. The Plays c. The Shaw Season in New York 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 |
|
a. The International Shaw Society c. The Bernard Shaw Society & The Independent Shavian |
|
6. Tailpiece |
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.
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.
Information
from the Shaw Chicago Theatre Company at http://www.shawchicago.org/
|
Performance |
Show Dates
|
Location |
Show Times |
Information |
|
Love Scenes* |
February
28, 2007 |
7:00pm |
Open
to the Public |
|
|
Shaw vs. Shakespeare: |
March
13, 2007 |
7:00pm |
Open
to the Public |
|
|
Women of Shaw: Strong, Smart, and Unsatisfied!* |
April
19, 2007 |
7:00pm |
Open
to the Public |
|
|
Caesar & Cleopatra |
April
14-May 7, 2007 |
various |
Ticket
Information |
|
|
Shaw vs. Shakespeare: |
May
24, 2007 |
6:00pm |
Open
to the Public |
* Performances are no charge
For information on all performances,
please call 312-587-7390
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.
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!
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 |
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.
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.
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.
Shaw's multivalent ideas on war inform many of his major plays, including Arms and the Man, Caesar and Cleopatra, Major Barbara, Heartbreak House, and Saint Joan. These and other Shavian plays dramatize GBS's commitment to ‘make war on war’ and his abiding interest in the subject. The age-old ambivalence of humanity toward war is hard to comprehend and still more difficult to express. Through his incisive dramatic forensics, Shaw explores this perplexing paradox and makes us confront the issue of war, which is both the anathema and apotheosis of humankind.
SHAW 28 will build on the growing body of critical
literature that studies Shaw and war, and the guest editor of that volume
invites papers for consideration that explore Shaw's dramatic
and non-dramatic writings on war and human aggression. Of special
interest are papers addressing Shaw's perspective on war through the lens of
peace, gender, love and romance, and history. The guest editor also welcomes
articles on Shaw's discussions with his
contemporaries about war and encourages bibliographic essays on Shaw and
war. Submission deadline is 15th May 2007. Please format
manuscripts in the accepted style of SHAW (consult recent volumes) and send to
the following address:
Dr. Lagretta Tallent Lenker
Department of English
CPR 107
University of South Florida Tampa, FL 33620
Questions about the volume may be directed to (e-mail) @.
CfP for a special session at MLA 2007
Chicago on ‘George Bernard Shaw and History’.
Possible topics may include (but are not limited to): Shaw and problems
in literary history and/or theater history; history and genre; historiography
and metahistory; religion, theology, and history; Shaw on scientific,
philosophical, and theoretical approaches to history / scientific,
philosophical, and theoretical approaches to history on Shaw; politics,
economics, ideology, and history; periodization: Shaw on the historical
periods (classical antiquity, middle ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, etc.) /
periodizing Shaw (Shaw as modernist? anti-modernist? counter-modernist?);
historicism; presentism; apocalypse and the end of history; posthistory;
prediction, prophecy, and the history of the future.
Sponsored by the International Shaw Society (www.shawsociety.org). Deadline for
abstracts and short CV is 15th March 2007.
Send to Charles Del Dotto @
Charles Joseph Del Dotto
Visiting Lecturing Fellow
Department of Theater Studies
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of English
Duke University
Durham, NC 27708
cjd@duke.edu
http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/English/grad/cjd
2007 Shaw Symposium at the Shaw Festival in Ontario, 29th, 30th,
31st July. For call details see http://www.shawsociety.org/Shaw-Symposium-2007.htm. Deadline 15th April.
We hope readers will draw our attention to their publications and papers on Shaw. Here we publish the abstract of a paper given at the annual ISS conference at Brown University last summer by our Associate Editor Barbara Pfeifer and an note on article by Leigh Woods, Head of Theatre Studies at the University of Michigan.
I. Barbara Pfeifer: Shaw's reception in Vienna
In view of the omnipresence of George Bernard Shaw’s plays on the Vienna stage in the first half of the 20th century, even in the politically highly sensitive periods of Austro-Fascism and National Socialist rule, this paper investigates the various as well as diverse factors that contributed to the pervasive success of the Irish playwright in Austria. Though Shaw’s plays generally provoked a mixed reception from critics and audiences alike, his name never disappeared from the theater bills. His singular status in the Viennese theatrical landscape was even secured after the annexation of Austria to Hitler Germany, when productions of Shaw’s plays actually increased. In seeking the explanation for his protected position, the playwright’s comments on social and political issues of the time, which influenced his public image and thus the reception of his dramatic works in Vienna, are reviewed against the background of the political scene in Austria. Based on the analysis of key events such as the Akademietheater performance of You Never Can Tell on Hitler’s 50th birthday in 1939, the ways in which Shaw’s ideas were utilized to promote the spread of fascist ideology will be illustrated.
II. Leigh Woods:
‘The Wooden Heads of the People’: Arnold Daly and Bernard Shaw. New
Theatre Quarterly 2006; 22(01): 54 - 69.
Once Arnold Daly and Bernard Shaw had got through their baptisms of fire in the
transatlantic theatre of the 1890s, the circumstances for their future
collaboration must have seemed propitious to them both. However, the
Irish-American's inflexibility and the Anglo-Irishman's passion for control led
to the fracturing of the relationship within the span of a few years in the
first decade of the new century. The exposure of their work – in tandem in
American vaudeville and later as competitors on the English variety stage –
marked points of their disagreement and quirks in their difficult personalities
as they scrambled for audiences who rarely appreciated them as much as both
felt they deserved. Leigh Woods explores the breakdown of a partnership that
launched one man on a course to oblivion and the other on a path to greater
glory.
Shaw’s Corner at Ayot St Lawrence (‘See the great dramatist’s revolving Writing Hut’) closed for the season on 29th October. House and garden reopen on St Patrick’s Day, 17th March from 1.00 p.m. to 5.00 p.m. (house) and 12.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. (garden), closed Monday and Tuesday.
Click the picture to find their website; the e-address is shawscorner@nationaltrust.org.uk.
© 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
We have been showing posters that the Footlights Gallery have for sale, and in future when these are no longer on offer we shall 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
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.
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 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.
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.
Latest added:
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.
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 and news on open access. It has recently created a Blog at gbs.shawsociety.org. The Society’s current executive is
R. F. Dietrich, President @
Don Wilmeth, Vice President
Lagretta Lenker, Treasurer @
Norma Jenckes, Recording Secretary @
Lori Ruse-Dietrich, Membership Secretary @
We will carry news of the activities of the ISS as it comes to hand. The next business meeting of the entire ISS will be on 30th July 2007 at the Shaw Symposium at the Shaw Festival. Non-members who are prospective members are welcome to attend meetings.
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
23rd February 2007 Annual General Meeting + ‘a dramatic entertainment’ and buffet (members only)
30th March 2007 Mark Saltzman talks about his new play Mr Shaw Goes to Hollywood
27th April 2007 Lauren Arrington gives a talk on and readings from O’Flaherty VC
25th May 2007 Leonard Conolly talks on ‘Shaw and the BBC’.
No new events beyond this are yet (26th January) announced.
The Shaw Society Reading Group meets on the first Friday of each month at Barry Morse’s flat in London. Details from Malcolm Wroe tel. 020 7485 8902.
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: @
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. This website address leads to a new front page, and this has been recently brought up to date, but the link to the ‘current’ number of The Independent Shavian still brings one to volume 43, issued in 2005, and the events page still refers to events of 2006 and 2005.
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). No forthcoming events are recorded.
The Society publishes The Independent Shavian, edited by Patrick Berry.
Volume 44 nos 1-2 2006 has been published. The Table of Contents is as follows:
|
Richard Nickson |
The Prince and The Laureate: the Editor’s
Notation (introduction to the following, the prince being the sculptor Prince
Paul Troubetzkoy) |
|
John S. Grioni |
A Lifetime Friendship |
|
Douglas Laurie |
The Irish Echo
Quotes |
|
T.F. Evans |
Letter from England |
|
Tony Stafford |
‘The End of the Hearth and Home’: The
Deconstructing Fireplace in Shaw’s Early Plays |
|
D.C. Rose |
Shaw et Certain: Two Paris Productions (review of
St Joan and Pygmalion) |
|
John P. Koontz |
‘Mr. Shaw’s Time is Filled Up for Months to
Come’. An exhibit of the Samuel N.
Freedman Collection of George Bernard Shaw, the Honorable John J. Burns
Library, Boston College |
|
Rhoda Nathan |
Fanny’s First Play: review of the Washington Stage Guild’s production |
|
Mark Dodd |
Shaw in Idaho (review of Major Barbara) |
|
Douglas Laurie |
Shaw on DVD |
|
|
2005 Index |
|
|
The Eric Bentley Gala |
|
|
News about Members |
|
|
Society activities |
The Table of Contents for Volume 45 2005 was published in Shavings 19. For earlier 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 a number, click here.
This maintains no website but maybe contacted through the Hon. Chairman, Brian Mc Grath @ 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.
We have recently established contact with these Societies, and hope to have regular news of their activities.
‘The vendetta between Douglas and Ross was only one of the bitterly contested controversies that arose years after Oscar Wilde had been laid in his grave. There was Douglas versus Harris, Sherard versus Harris, and with even greater acrimony Sherard versus Shaw […] Bernard Shaw emerged without much credit remaining to him for fair dealing in controversy.’
– Lewis Broad: The Friendships and Follies of Oscar Wilde. London: Hutchinson 1954 p.253.
Click
The sign @ connects to an e-mail address.