The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet is George Bernard Shaw’s take on the American West and a vessel through which he critiques many of its hypocrisies. The story follows Blanco Posnet, a social reprobate brought before the court and accused of horse thievery, Feemy Evans, a local prostitute called to witness, and Blanco’s curious and life-altering encounter with God. The play was originally meant to be performed in one of Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s After Noon Theatre productions at His Majesty’s Theatre in London. The censor required alterations be made to the script, because Blanco’s declarations about God were thought to violate the Blasphemy law. Shaw refused to change the text and proposed the play be performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin instead, where the Theatres Act of 1843 did not apply. It premiered there in 1909. Although the play left some theater-goers enlightened, many enraged, and most confused, it certainly left them all thinking. 

Does justice mean anything if motivated by personal gain? Is God an instrument of emotional change or hypocrisy? Or both?

Want to learn more about The Shewing Up of Blanco Posnet? Click on this link: Understanding Blanco 

Don Juan in Hell is the third act of the four act play, Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy, by George Bernard Shaw. Man and Superman is a 1903 Comedy of Manners that reflects the characters and themes present in the Don Juan Folktale, while taking a modern philosophical and political twist. The story follows John Tanner, who in the play’s third act is robbed by a gang of brigands in the hills of the Spanish Sierra Nevada, and ends up sharing a dream with the brigand’s chief, Mendoza. This dream sequence, which takes up the majority of the third act, reamigines characters Don Juan, Doña Ana, and Don Gonzalo (the Statue) in Hell, engaging in a profound debate with the Devil that will inform the decision of their fate; 

Who will go to Heaven and who will stay in Hell? What is the Life Force, and is it worth pursuing? Does history repeat itself or can people change? Can I be the hero that makes other people change?

Want to learn more about Don Juan in Hell? Click on this link: Understanding Don Juan