Word: undershaft
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...these men participate in what has become the world's fastest-growing business?the arms trade. The contracts they sign in one day could easily exceed a lifetime of sales made by the "merchants of death" of an earlier era, immortalized in Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw's Undershaft, whose credo was "to give arms to all men who offer an honest price for them, without respect of persons or principles ... to Capitalist and Socialist, to Protestant and Catholic, to burglar and policeman, to black man white man and yellow man, to all sorts and conditions, all nationalities, faiths...
...Undershaft spirit rules. When...
...machinations hasten the entrance of Major Barbara. The comforting commander, made even more soothing by Ellen Anderman's empathetic performance, douses the raging Beckhard. But the arrival of the play's two strongest characters-Cousins, Barbara's boyfriend, and Undershaft, her father-threatens, and eventually undermines Anderson's moderating role...
Chapman's directorial talents emerge as he harnesses the brute power of the hulking Jon Epstein. The director bottles Epstein into the cold and calculating Undershaft of this second act. In this section we hate this mild-mannered munitions manufacturer who wants to donate his blood-stained profits to the sweet cause of salvation...
Chapman also channels the talents of John Majors into a penetrating Cousin, who accentuates Undershaft's demonical doctrines as he confronts him. Once Majors conquers his inappropriate Trotsky-like appearance and stops pounding his irritating drum, there ensues a battle which erases any doubt that Undershaft might not be "an infernal old rascal." As the single act draws to a close and Ellen Anderman unconvincingly projects Major Barbara's breakdown, the lingering image of the triumphant Undershaft provides a good conclusion for a play left...