SHOWS

Major Barbara

Written by George Bernard Shaw

Presented by ShawChicago

October 15, 2005 — November 12, 2005
Studio Theater
FREE

2005 marks the 100th anniversary of the first production of Shaw’s Major Barbara, a satire in three acts. In the play, Shaw mocks religious hypocrisy and the complicity of society in its own ills.

A major in the Salvation Army, Barbara Undershaft is estranged from her wealthy father, Andrew Undershaft, a munitions manufacturer. Although the Salvation Army condemns war, it gladly accepts a donation of 5,000 pounds from her warmonger father, and she resigns in protest. The Army offers the poor only salvation, while Undershaft takes steps toward eradicating poverty. He pays his workers well, treats them with dignity, and supplies them with decent living conditions and an education. Barbara discovers that although her father may deal in death for a livelihood, his principles and practices are religious in the highest sense. Barbara eventually comes to accept her father’s views on capitalism and to believe that the greatest evil is the degradation caused by grinding poverty.