G.B.Shaw: Major Barbara
BBC Radio 3: The Sunday Play
Broadcast: Sunday 15th November 1998 @ 7:30 p.m.
As the play opens, it is after dinner in January 1906 in the library in Lady Britomart Undershaft's house, in Wilton Crescent, London. Lady
Britomart, a British woman in her fifties, is discussing with her son some permanent source of income for her grown daughters, Sarah
and Barbara, who are engaged to Charles Lomax and Adolphous Cusins respectively. Lady Britomart comes to the conclusion that the
only solution to the present problem is to take monetary help from her estranged husband, Andrew Undershaft. He is a very successful
businessman who owns a munitions factory that manufactures the world famous Undershaft Guns, submarines, and torpedoes. When
their children were young, the couple separated due to questions about Undershaft's wealth and how it would be distributed. Lady
Britomart has managed to raise the children by herself.
Because Lady Britomart has decided to seek help from her estranged husband, Sarah, Barbara, and Stephen are reintroduced to their
father. In the course of their reunion, Undershaft learns that his daughter Barbara is a Major at the Salvation Army shelter. Impressed by
her, Undershaft pay her a visit at the shelter in order to see her at work. As he watches her handling various people with patience,
firmness, and sincerity, he is impressed with her abilities. Undershaft decides that if anyone in his family is capable of managing his
business, it is his idealistic and committed daughter, Barbara.
Undershaft brings his daughter back to reality by revealing the darker side of the Salvation Army to her. Disillusioned, Barbara leaves
the shelter in tears to go with her father to his ammunition factory. Adolphous follows her. He is soon made heir to the Undershaft factory,
because he is a foundling. According to the Undershaft tradition, the heir to the Undershaft fortune must be an orphan who can be
groomed to run the factory. After all, Undershaft himself had been a poor young man, staying at the Salvation Army shelter; he improved
his lot by working hard, and he wants to give some other young gentleman the same kind of opportunities. Major Barbara soon marries
Adolphous, and they live in the countryside near the factory. Barbara, whose idealism has been tempered with reality, brings her words
of salvation to the workers in the factory.
This play, written in 1905, is a moral confrontation between two generations: the old who made the best of opportunities in an immoral
world, and the young who want to atone for this by the misguided idealism of individual sacrifice. It is an exposition of Shaw's doctrine
that one "must either share the world's guilt or go to another planet".
This production features the cast from the 1998 West End stage production.
With Anna Carteret [Lady Britomart Undershaft], Crispin Bonham Carter [Stephen Undershaft], Stephen Noonan [Morrison, the Butler /
Snobby Price], Jemma Redgrave [Major Barbara Undershaft], Victoria Hasted [Sarah Undershaft], John Elmes [Charles Lomax,
Sarah's Fiancé], David Yelland [Adolphous Cusins, Barbara's Fiancé], Peter Bowles [Andrew Undershaft], Angela Crow [Rummy
Mitchens], Rebecca Saire [Jenny Hill], Richard Kane [Peter Shirley], Marty Cruickshank [Mrs. Baines], and Dickon Tyrrell [Bill Walker
/ Bilton].
Directed by Peter Hall.
Produced by Catherine Bailey.
Re-broadcast on Sunday 28th January 2001 @ 7:30 p.m.
145 min.
Jim.
