George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara (#ClassicsClub)

Wendy Hiller as Major Barbara from the 1941 movie poster

Major Barbara is a play by George Bernard Shaw first performed in London in 1905. It centers around the Undershaft family.

Lady Britomart Undershaft: (The matriarch of the family) 

"You know how poor my father is: he has barely seven thousand a year now; and, really, if he were not the Earl of Stevenage, he would have to give up society."

Stephen Undershaft: (The son) 

"He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That clearly points to a political career."

Sarah Undershaft: (The older daughter) 

"I dare say it's very wicked of papa to make cannons, but I don't think I shall cut him on that account."

Charles Lomax: (Sarah's fiancé, and the comic relief)

"Oh, I say."

Barbara Undershaft: (The younger daughter)

"Really, Barbara, you go on as if religion were a pleasant subject. Do have some sense of propriety."

Adolphus Cusins: (Barbara's fiancé, and a Professor of Greek)

"Cusins is a very nice fellow, certainly; nobody would ever guess he was born in Australia..."

Andrew Undershaft: (The father, estranged from the family at the start)

"UNASHAMED."

The first act takes place as Lady Britomart is explaining to Stephen and her other children that, because they need money, she has invited their father to the house again and they're going to have to be nice to him. That's even though he makes munitions and sells them to all comers. (Their latest offering is a new 'aerial battleship'.)

Undershaft Industries has a tradition where the current Undershaft adopts an impoverished foundling and leaves the business to the adoptee. Obviously none of the Undershaft children are foundlings, and despite what their mother might say, not really impoverished either. Lady Britomart is determined, though, that the tradition can end.

Barbara, the most spirited of the Undershaft children, has recently joined the Salvation Army and for her diligence and zeal has been promoted to Major. She's determined to make people better, morally. She's especially put off by her father's manner of making money. He challenges her to come see his factory, and she agrees if he comes to her Salvation Army outpost.

The second act is at the Salvation Army camp. We see Barbara attempting save the wretched poor of the neighborhood, but can they be saved? In any case saving will certainly require money, which her father rather impishly offers. (And is refused.)

The final act is at the Undershaft Industries factory, which is set up as a model town on liberal principles rather like David Dale's New Lanark:

 

 

Who is it that actually wants and gets the factory in the end? 

 

I find this one of Shaw's sprightliest plays, but it is perhaps a bit one-sided in its arguments even for Shaw. But there's plenty of good banter in it. So...some quotes! [If my choice of quotes leans a little heavy on Greek as a subject, well, it's true I was a Classics major back in the day...]

-Don't call me Biddy. I don't call you Andy.

-I will not call my wife Britomart. It is not good sense.

-Can a sane man translate Euripides?

-No.

-I know the difference between right and wrong.

-At twenty-four, too!

-Pooh, professor. Let us call things by their proper names. I am a millionaire, you are a poet, Barbara is a savior of souls.

-Greek scholars are privileged men. Few of them know Greek, and none of them know anything else.

-After all nobody can say a word against Greek: it stamps a man at once as an educated gentleman.

-You can not have power for good without having power for evil, too.

And that's the last of the books from my first Classics Club list. Yay! Only six and a half years into a five-year challenge...

 

Time for a new list?