Word: shavianism
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...naming the Shavian as winner, the Swedish Academy has not only shown its customary good judgment but it has also made what might be termed a concession to popular demand. Once hounded and reviled, Shaw is now at most a "lovable" character, with an enormous following. Time has proved many of his social radicalisms to have been sound and if he made false prophecies he also made lasting ones. When he announced his intention of writing a serious play built around the life of Joan of Arc, the critics laughed and settled back to await a Shavian monster, born...
Heartbreak House in Shavian language means Europe-Before-The-War, as the playwright revealed in his preface. But most of the playgoers had no preface to guide them and laugh as hard as they would they couldn't make heads or tails of it all. Oh, it was very funny, and quite too cynical for words, but somehow just what it meant the audience couldn't decide. They stood around in wavering little circles in the lobby between the first and second acts and tugged at friends' coat-tails and squeaked "What do you think this is all about...
...first showing here "Heartbreak House" disturbed more than it satisfied, and the explanation for this is to be sought as much in its performance as in its book. The persons of the play are not all mere Shavian types, but present among their numbers true character studies. And it is in playing these character studies that the Repertory actors excelled. There was a flatness of level in their portrayal of the types, a tendency to overplay and make garishly unreal the half people, which was remarkably absent from their rendering of the character parts...
Long have the winds tossed sand up-on the ruts where first his chariot wheels carved their royal course, long have the mysteries of death been open sesame to him, yet this king, no older than the Shavian Cleopatra, still survives. Once the leader of a kingdom, again the leader of a Twentieth Century fad, Tutankhamen has within the week eclipsed contemporary suns with the shadow of his majesty. For labor leaders, finance ministers, and even divorcees are never buried in coffins of gold in an eternal setting of jewels. A people hungry for the glints of splendor find much...
...cadavers. Modern research, ill content with probing the affairs of life, probes death. So this boy who once ruled Egypt must stand inspection before a maudlin world, while from far and near come novelty seekers aspiring to gaze for a moment at the death masque of the Pharaoh. Shavian and eternal, the child king suffers resurrection...