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234 MODERN DRAMA September identify the model for a character unless he is portrayed fully enough to let us form some idea of Shaw's artistic method and intent in transforming him into a dramatic character. Dr. Crompton's sketches seldom give us enough for that purpose. In some cases, moreover, as in that of Lady Britomart in Major Barbara, the interpretation is just inaccurate enough to blur the outlines of the play itself. Lady Britomart is Wilde's Lady Bracknell, though less static and less funny, but the difference in the way she develops during the play cannot be derived from facts about· Gilbert Murray's mother-in-law, her prototype, but only from the dramatic movement of the play toward the moment at which even she must recognize the light when she sees it. Comic characters must not be distorted to fit within the skins of their prototypes. This is missing the point, just as it is a circular argument to explain the paradox of Undershaft in the same play by setting down the very case history Shaw devised in order to establish the plausibilityof the strange figure who embodies an ironic central idea. The dramatic necesm· ties of the play determine Undershaft's history, not the other way around. It is only through Shaw's polemical intention and dramatic structure that the critic can "explain" the paradox of Undershaft or any other. Shaw dreaded falling into the hands of schoolmasters. Here we see why. The dutiful, thorough seeking out of sources and comparisons, and the straightforward application of all classifiable facts can surround but never capture plays that are artificial, ironic, and funny. The result is a solemnity Shaw abhorred. And the solemnity is peculiarly American. Of the Don Juan in Hell episode: "Whether one accepts Shaw's arguments or not will depend, of course, on one's basic attitude toward evolution, revolution, and marriage." Shaw was never so conciliatory. Nor, when he gave the devil his due, did he give him more. But the real objection to such an approach is that it treats this ballet for four brains as though it were a mere expression of opinions. True as it is that Shaw's plays can never be understood apart from the real world, which is their subject though it does not make up their content, it is equally misleading to assume that the dramatic conHict on stage is just like the political argument in the lobby. The playas a work of art defeats any critic who pretends it is something else. BARBARA BELLOW WATSON City University of New York RECOLLECTIONS OF GEORGE BERNARD SHAW: THE PRIVATE LIFE OF THE PUBLIC MAN-REVEALED BY THOSE WHO KNEW HIM BEST, by R. J. Minney. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969. $7.95. This is a group of recollections of Shaw, principally of his married life and later years, by a number of people who came in contact with him through the theater and motion pictures. R. J. Minney, who did not know Shaw until 1920 and then only for a brief time, provides what little coherence there is in this episodic book. Mrs. Alice Laden, Shaw's housekeeper after his wife's death, is another main voice. Others include many of the "personalities" who had roles in Shaw's plays and motion pictures: Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Gabriel Pascal, Wendy Hiller and more. The main interest is thus with Shaw's later plays, his motion pictures, and his life after the death of his wife. Shaw first met Charlotte Payne-Townsend-a wealthy Irish woman in her forties-at Beatrice Webb's country house parties in the mid-thirties. The recollections of their early married life are taken mainly from Shaw's letters to Ellen Terry, to Charlotte, and from the recollections of Beatrice Webb and Mrs. Alice 1970 BOOK REVIEWS 235 Laden. The Shaws' married life was curious: no talk was permitted at meals. and Mrs~ Shaw seemed to have confided more of her thoughts to T. E. Lawrence than she did to Shaw. Of her Shaw said. "Of all the women 1 have known ..• I knew Charlotte least of all." There was no question...

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