Shaw / Baziyan The Millionairess & Selected Correspondence Relating to the Play

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-3-7531-9757-9
Verlag: neobooks
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Deutsch, 144 Seiten

The selected correspondence of Bernard Shaw relating to the play The Millionairess contains 37 letters, written between 1934 and 1949. The book represents a significant addition to present-day understanding of the play The Millionairess. It reveals views of Shaw on a wide variety of issues and his relationships with contemporaries. The play The Millionairess was written in 1935. The first English edition was published on 24 March 1936 by Constable and Company Ltd, London (The Simpleton, The Six, And The Millionairess: Being Three More Plays). This publication is a handmade reproduction from this edition, and remains as true to the original work as possible. The original edition was processed manually by means of a classic editing which ensures the quality of publications. Here are some inspirational book quotes from Bernard Shaw: 'The Millionairess is a play with a very strong part for a female star, and, if you can get the right woman, it will be a moneymaker and cover [your wife] Tina with diamonds. It is, however, a star play in respect of its dependence on a single actress with a very heavy part and a termagant personality. If they have found the right woman for Epifania, and she sticks faithfully to her part as I have written it, it will be a success; and you will make some money. Unless it is pure Shaw, it is doomed. If they alter a single word or incident in The Millionairess they shall never have another play of mine to murder. I have not written a potboiler since The Apple Cart; and I must make some money out of The Millionairess or drop the theatre. The successes in Vienna, Prague, and now in Milan and Rome are hopeful; and I ought to strike while the iron is lukewarm. I have a young and beautiful Epifania raging to play the part: Her name is Leonora Corbett. I have not had a potboiler since The Apple Cart; and as all my debentures and mortgages were paid off during the slump and my investments in crematoria have not yet fructified I am banking a little on The Millionairess to make me a millionaire. Eppy speech should be peculiar to herself; but she must not be a stage foreigner, as that lingo is always grossly incorrect. She is exotic and essentially tragic all through. In the original version I made the woman a boxer; but, on the stage, that was unconvincing and unladylike. So I have made her a Judo expert. The part requires just such a personality as Miss Hepburn.' The book also includes an editor's note to German readers.

Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and influencer. Shaw is one of only two people in the world to have won both a Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938).

Autoren/Hrsg.

Shaw, Bernard

Baziyan, Vitaly

Leseproben

ALASTAIR [baffled] Damn! [He sits down again].

PATRICIA. Dont get rattled, Ally: you will only put yourself in the wrong before Mr Sagamore. I think youd better go home and leave me to have it out with her.

EPIFANIA. Will you have the goodness not to speak of me as “her”? I am Mrs Fitzfassenden. I am not a pronoun. [She resumes her seat haughtily].

PATRICIA. Sorry; but your name is such a tongue-twister. Mr Sagamore: dont you think Ally had better go? It’s not right that we should sit here arguing about him to his face. Besides, he’s worn out: he’s hardly slept all night.

EPIFANIA. How do you know that, pray?

PATRICIA. Never mind how I know it. I do.

ALASTAIR. It was quite innocent; but where could I go to when you drove me out of the house by your tantrums?

EPIFANIA [most unexpectedly amused] You went to her?

ALASTAIR. I went to Miss Smith: she’s not a pronoun, you know. I went where I could find peace and kindness, to my good sweet darling Polly. So there!

EPIFANIA. I have no sense of humor; but this strikes me as irresistibly funny. You actually left ME to spend the night in the arms of Miss Seedystockings!

ALASTAIR. No, I tell you. It was quite innocent.

EPIFANIA [to Patricia] Was he in your arms or was he not?

PATRICIA. Well, yes, of course he was for a while. But not in the way you mean.

EPIFANIA. Then he is even a more sexless fish than I took him for. But really a man capable of flouncing out of the house when I was on the point of pardoning him and giving him a night of legitimate bliss would be capable of any imbecility.

ALASTAIR. Pardoning me! Pardoning me for what? What had I done when you flew out at me?

EPIFANIA. I did not fly out at you. I have never lost my dignity even under the most insufferable wrongs.

ALASTAIR. You hadnt any wrongs. You drove me out of the house?

EPIFANIA. I did not. I never meant you to go. It was abominably selfish of you. You had your Seedystockings to go to; but I had nobody. Adrian was out of town.

SAGAMORE. Adrian! This is a new complication. Who is Adrian?

PATRICIA. Adrian is Mrs Fitzfassenden’s Sunday husband, Mr Sagamore.

EPIFANIA. My what, did you say?

PATRICIA. Your Sunday husband. You understand. What Mr Adrian Blenderbland is to you, as it were. What Ally is to me.

SAGAMORE. I dont quite follow. What is Mr Blenderbland to you, Mrs Fitzfassenden, if I may ask?

EPIFANIA. Well, he is a gentleman with whom I discuss subjects that are beyond my husband’s mental grasp, which is extremely limited.

ALASTAIR. A chap that sets up to be an intellectual because his father was a publisher! He makes up to Eppy and pretends to be in love with her because she has a good cook; but I tell her he cares for nothing but his food. He always calls at mealtimes. A bellygod, I call him. And I am expected to put up with him. But if I as much as look at Polly! Oh my!

EPIFANIA. The cases are quite different. Adrian worships the ground I tread on: that is quite true. But if you think that Seedystockings worships the ground you tread on, you flatter yourself grossly. She endures you and pets you because you buy stockings for her, and no doubt anything else she may be short of.

PATRICIA. Well, I never contradict anyone, because it only makes trouble. And I am afraid I do cost him a good deal; for he likes me to have nice things that I cant afford.

ALASTAIR [affectionately] No, Polly: you dont. Youre as good as gold. I’m always pressing things on you that you won’t take. Youre a jolly sight more careful of my money than I am myself.

EPIFANIA. How touching! You are the Sunday wife, I suppose.

PATRICIA. No: I should say that you are the Sunday wife, Mrs Fitzfassenden. It’s I that have to look after his clothes and make him get his hair cut.

EPIFANIA. Surely the creature is intelligent enough to do at least that much for himself.

PATRICIA. You dont understand men: they get interested in other things and neglect themselves unless they have a woman to look after them. You see, Mr Sagamore, it’s like this. There are two sorts of people in the world: the people anyone can live with and the people that no one can live with. The people that no one can live with may be very goodlooking and vital and splendid and temperamental and romantic and all that; and they can make a man or woman happy for half an hour when they are pleased with themselves and disposed to be agreeable; but if you try to live with them they just eat up your whole life running after them or quarrelling or attending to them one way or another: you cant call your soul your own. As Sunday husbands and wives, just to have a good tearing bit of love-making with, or a blazing row, or mostly one on top of the other, once a month or so, theyre all right. But as everyday partners theyre just impossible.

EPIFANIA. So I am the Sunday wife. [To Patricia, scornfully] And what are you, pray?

PATRICIA. Well, I am the angel in the house, if you follow me.

ALASTAIR [blubbering] You are, dear: you are.

EPIFANIA [to Patricia] You are his doormat: thats what you are.

PATRICIA. Doormats are very useful things if you want the house kept tidy, dear.

The telephone rings. Sagamore attends to it.

SAGAMORE. Yes? . . . Did you say Blenderbland?

EPIFANIA. Adrian! How did he know I was here?

SAGAMORE. Ask the gentleman to wait. [He hangs up the receiver]. Perhaps you can tell me something about him, Mrs Fitzfassenden. Is he the chairman of Blenderbland’s Literary Pennyworths?

EPIFANIA. No. That is his father, who created the business. Adrian is on the board; but he has no business ability. He is on fifteen boards of directors on the strength of his father’s reputation, and has never, as far as I know, contributed an idea to any of them.

ALASTAIR. Be fair to him, Eppy. No man in London knows how to order a dinner better. Thats what keeps him at the top in the city.

SAGAMORE. Thank you: I think I have his measure sufficiently. Shall I have him up?

EPIFANIA. Certainly. I want to know what he is doing here.

ALASTAIR. I dont mind. You understand, of course, that I am not supposed to know anything of his relations with my wife, whatever they may be.

EPIFANIA. They are perfectly innocent, so far. I am not quite convinced that I love Adrian. He makes himself agreeable: that is all.

SAGAMORE [into the telephone] Send Mr Blenderbland up. [He hangs up the instrument].

ALASTAIR [to Patricia] You will now see the blighter who has cut me out with Eppy.

PATRICIA. I cant imagine any man cutting you out with any woman, dear.

EPIFANIA. Will you be good enough to restrain your endearments when he comes in?

Adrian Blenderbland, an imposing man in the prime of life, bearded in the Victorian literary fashion, rather handsome, and well dressed, comes in. Sagamore rises. Adrian is startled when he sees the company, but recovers his aplomb at once, and advances smiling.

ADRIAN. Hallo! Where have we all come from? Good morning, Mrs Fitzfassenden. How do, Alastair? Mr Sagamore, I presume. I did not know you were engaged.

SAGAMORE. Your arrival is quite opportune, sir. Will you have the goodness to sit down? [He takes a chair from the wall and places it at the table, on his own right and Patricia’s left].

ADRIAN [sitting down] Thank you. I hope I am not interrupting this lady.

PATRICIA. Not at all. Dont mind me.

SAGAMORE [introducing] Miss Smith, an intimate friend of Mr Fitzfassenden.

PATRICIA. Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.

Adrian bows to her; then turns to Sagamore.

ADRIAN. The fact is, Mrs Fitzfassenden mentioned your name to me in conversation as her choice of a new solicitor. So I thought I could not place myself in better hands.

SAGAMORE [bowing] Thank you, sir. But?excuse me?had you not a solicitor of your own?

ADRIAN. My dear Mr Sagamore: never be content with a single opinion. When I feel ill I always consult at least half a dozen doctors. The variety of their advice and prescriptions convinces me that I had better cure myself. When a legal point arises I consult six solicitors, with much the same?

EPIFANIA. Adrian: I have no sense of humor; and you know how it annoys me when you talk the sort of nonsense that is supposed to be funny. Did you come here to consult Mr Sagamore about me?

ADRIAN. I did. But of course I expected to find him alone.

PATRICIA. And here we are, the whole caboodle.

EPIFANIA. I was speaking to Mr Blenderbland, not to you. And I am not a member of your caboodle, as you call it.

SAGAMORE. Has the matter on which you wish to consult me any reference to Mr Fitzfassenden’s family circle?

ADRIAN. It has.

SAGAMORE. Is it of such a nature that sooner or later it will have to be discussed with all the adult members of that circle?

ADRIAN. Well, yes: I suppose so. But hadnt we better talk it over a little in private first?

EPIFANIA....