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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 23. 23rd September 1973

Drama — Major Barbara:

Drama

Major Barbara:

Drama header

Somehow a drama critic has to strike a balance between an academic and a spectator's appreciation of a play, between the play in print and its performance. Unity's current production of Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara rams the dilemma home. As a 'discussion' play which is how Shaw described several of his pieces, it works quite well. The contemporary audience takes a while to warm up to the Shavian wit, which is mostly the kind of word-play indulged in by logicians, rather than James Joyce. In short, the definition of abstracts is really how the play proceeds: feelings are altered, religion shattered merely by redefinition. Shaw does not deal so much in characters as he does in the finesse of discourse, so that his characters all end up glossed with the same veneer. Sardonic observations come to one and all, seemingly without discrimination. Hot words are caught in asbestos mitts, making the passions by which plays usually proceed a little too structured to be credible. We are watching clever people tinker with clever words, which does very little to open up debate in our own minds. Admiration goes to the character who weaves the most impenetrable thicket of words; if Shaw set out to portray moral dilemma, his very verbal skill betrays his aim.

There are further difficulties for today's audience. Shaw's tale concerns an upper-class convert to the Salvation Army who has risen to the lofty height of major and her realisation that the Salvation Army, backed as it is by distilleries and her father's munitions plant, will do nothing other than patch social scams. What really hurts her, however, is not this, but that her converts come for the meagre pieces of bread and treacle she doles out, that it is not her own strength and powers of conviction and persuasion that 'saves' them. The working class down and outs, then, are found to be beneath her dignity. She and her fiance end up learning how to run Daddy's munitions factory, telling themselves that you must face the world, including its evil aspect, and that she can only convert the powerful by wielding great power herself. Shaw argues in very liberal terms, making the whole exercise unreal, even gentle. It ends up a better portrayal of how Shaw relates to the class structure in the England of 1905 than a talc of moral dilemma. James K. Baxter dealt far more effectively and movingly with the Sallies than the dry, slightly condescending wit of Shaw. While I don't think every play should be judged on it's 'relevance' (a conveniently nebulous term) — it does strike me that Major Barbara will be enjoyed for very different reasons, some of them nostalgic, today than when it was first produced. A play is not just a script or an assembled group of players; the audience is also necessary.

Bill Juliff's production brings out Shaw's wit while playing down the 'morals' or 'politics' — a wise choice. Unfortunately his cast are very uneven, and they are not helped by the length of the play — two and a half hours. The second act set in Major Barbara's Sally kitchen, and filled with 'the lower classes' is by far the most effective. Shaw here abandons his 'discussion' for confrontation of a far more physical sort. The minor characters are played with strength and ease, showing up the less assured acting of some of the main characters. There is a certain stilted feeling about the whole performance, which may have something to do with dealing with a different pattern of conversation than we are used to.