Comédie

George Bernard Shaw and all the others

The Man of Destiny by George Bernard Shaw, Grandma Pulls the String by Edith Barnard Delano and David Carb, Spreading the News by Lady Gregory, The Robbery by Clare Kummer, Low Life by Mazo de la Roche, Pirates by Colin Clements, Meet the Missus by Kenyon Nicholson, The Laziest Man in the World by Carl Webster Pierce, Wurzel-Flummery by A. A. Milne, The Spell by Bernard Duffy, The Eclipse by McElbert Moore, The Magic Glasses by George Fitzmaurice, A Previous Engagement by Percival Wilde, The ‘Show’ Actress by J. C. McMullen, Mrs Hoops-Hooper and the Hindu by Mary Moncure Parker, His First Shave by Ronald Else and College Days by John Kendrick Stafford

Was George Bernard Shaw funny? Sometimes, not always, on occasion hardly ever. Even with his comic plays, sometimes it’s hard to tell. Take this one, for instance. It’s a character study with one historical character, the little corporal himself.

In Shaw’s play, Napoleon is more or less fresh from the battle of Lodi, a battle which he won and in which he played a personally heroic part. He is 27, however, and not yet much of a political figure. He sits at table in an Italian inn with an obsequious landlord standing nearby, the innkeeper telling the young commander how great a man the general is, while Napoleon is waiting for the arrival of some despatches, which have been sent with an officer whom Napoleon expects to see appear on horseback.

They wait. The innkeeper tries a little more flattery. The general says he is immune.

A little later, the innkeeper and the general are talking. Do you, Napoleon asks him, have that burning, raging desire in you to do something, to attain some mission? Are you filled with such drives as propel a man to work ceaselessly for objectives that give him no pleasure when they are attained? Are you a slave to your ambition?

I am not, the innkeeper says. The innkeeper is adamant. He does not want glory for himself. To run dutifully when his guests call, that is all he wants from life. He bought an inn so that he need not work; the people pay for themselves and he can hire staff to see to their needs. He is mostly left free to talk – and he likes talking, yes indeed he does. Napoleon is eating ravenously. It is his habit. Shaw has him look at maps and note things on them. When he runs out of ink he asks for something red to write with.

You can use blood, the innkeeper says, or wine.

But wine is expensive and has a use, Napoleon tells him. I suppose it has to be blood. It means nothing to spill some and it’s free. The general does not write with blood, however.

The lieutenant appears, flustered. He is a man of breeding, of style. But he is unfortunately a very stupid man. He was meant to arrive on a horse, but he has been tricked out of his horse. He was meant to arrive with some despatches, but he has been conned out of those, too. He was meant to have his pistols, but alas, they in addition have gone. In short, he has been brutally done in, all by his own foolishness, and he says he will gladly wring the neck of the man who conned him, if only he could find the guy.

Oh, yes, he would make him suffer, all right. He would make the man cease to fear hell and damnation, he would, so badly would the lieutenant treat him. Oh yes; oh yes indeed. The punishment greater than the one the lieutenant would inflict has not been invented, and so on and so on.

Ah, the innkeeper is meanwhile telling the general, there is a very mysterious lady also staying in the inn. She arrived in a cart drawn by a single horse. Perhaps you will wish to see her?

When the lady appears she is tall and graceful, all breeding and beauty. The lieutenant leaps up.

She looks very much like the man who conned me, general! She looks very much like him indeed.

Convinced, eventually, that the man who conned him was the lady’s non-existent brother, the lieutenant is placed under arrest for the loss of the despatches and his horse. He might get out of it, it is eventually decided, if he can find the man who swindled him.

Much of the rest of the play is a dialogue between the general – not yet emperor – and the lady. He knows, of course, that she impersonated a man and stole the despatches. But he does not know, at least not yet, what they contain. He does not know why she did it.

And she, meanwhile, plays every trick and every character possible. She is adoring and she is bewildered. She throws herself down in tears and she smiles and laughs at her ability to manipulate. She is fearful and she is defiant. She is brave and she is afraid. It is ridiculous, these convolutions.

The general, meanwhile, is both the man we know from books – the man David painted on a horse – but not yet that man. He is smallish, not entirely French, one who knows according to Shaw that he will be great, who believes in his star, but whose moment has not yet arrived.

Is this play funny? I suppose it depends. Is historical irony funny? Is biographical comedy funny? Or is it merely French?

The majority of these plays are comedies, the plurality of that majority quite short plays. What can we learn from what people in the past seem to have found funny? They liked it when characters were not who they seemed to be (Mrs Hoops-Hooper and the Hindu). They liked it when people were once married or together or friends but are not together at the time of the play’s being put on (The ‘Show’ Actress). They like happy conclusions (The Robbery, A Previous Engagement). Some of the farces, especially College Days, are so ridiculous it’s difficult to know what’s happening most of the time. Possibly those seeing it live a hundred or so years ago knew what was going on.

I must admit, I didn’t.