Word: undershafts
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...green emblem on the baby's diaper assays potassium chlorate . . . which implicates the gunpowder blender. Egad, the whole thing begins to jell. The Undershaft payroll goes out tomorrow . . . Then they'll knock the place over within 24 hours?" said Dr. Watson...
...Army of Shaw's play is more than the musical comedy of Guys and Dolls. Major Barbara is a vehicle for a social philosophy: "the Gospel of St. Andrew Undershaft." Undershaft is Barbara's munitions-manufacturer father, who preaches a religion of "money and gunpowder." He insists that the worst crime of all is poverty. They who disdain wealth and prate morality are hypocrites. "Money is the most important thing in the world," says Shaw in his Preface, "It is the counter that enables life to be distributed socially." It is better to be a wicked rich man than...
Shaw is Shaw, however, and he never lets the moralizing get you down. Major Barbara is a funny show and the Loeb production loses none of that humor. There's the menagerie of Lady Britomart, Undershaft's estranged wife. Her son Stephen (Charles Degelman) cavills, while her son-in-law-to-be (William Docken) snivels, while Roger Zim as a ghoulish, confused butler looks...
Erhardt himself plays Andrew Undershaft, and does so forcefully. However, I would question his interpretation. Undershaft should be an obnoxious man. When the audience is forced to admit that what he says is true, it should be regretfully, as Shaw puts it, "with a pain in the self-esteem." We should begrudge the nobility of Undershaft's thought. As Erhardt played the role, his manners were already too noble, his voice too Stentorian...
...audience was convinced Undershaft was right before Barbara was and this made the role of Barbara, played by Patricia Hawkins, much more difficult. She seemed both far more naive and far more pigheaded than Shaw intended. Barbara has to separate the truthful doctrine from the repulsive personality of Undershaft. Erhardt was too engaging, too soon...