Word: heartbreakingly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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British wit also characterizes the Dunster House production of Shaw's Heartbreak House. Though not lacking in Shavian verbal cleverness, this play is atypical Shaw in certain ways. It abounds in action, making it less talkative than Man and Superman or Saint Joan. The characters are more three-dimensional and very finely drawn; they espouse philosophies, instead of embodying them, as is so often the case with Shavian types. Often, in fact, they seem to echo characters of other plays by Shaw, only they turn out not to be what they seem. This motif runs through Heartbreak House...
Written late in Shaw's career, Heartbreak House unfolds against the backdrop of World War 1. It opens almost like an Agatha Christie murder mystery: a young girl, accompanied her finance and father, comes to a strange country house, invited by a woman she doesn't know all that well. The house is bulging with a variety of guests, to who terms like "wacky" and "zany" cannot be too strongly applied. A burglar enters the premises, as does the long-lost daughter of one of the guests. Relationships among the characters are tangled--nobody is quite what he appears...
...Heartbreak House--Dunster Dining Hall...
...Heartbreak House...
...Heartbreak House--Dunster Dining Hall...