THE APPLE CART -G.B.SHAW AUTHOR INTRO: George Bernard Shawwas the third and youngest child (and only son) of George Carr Shawand Lucinda Elizabeth Gurly Shaw. Technically, he belonged to the Protestant“ascendancy”—the landed Irish gentry—but his impractical father was first a sinecured civil servant and then an unsuccessful grain merchant, and George Bernard grew up in an atmosphere of genteel poverty, which to him was more humiliating than being merely poor. At first Shaw was tutored by a clerical uncle, and he basically rejected the schools he then attended; by age 16 he was working in a land agent’s office.His fiction failed utterly. The semiautobiographical and aptly titledImmaturity(1879; published 1930) repelled every publisher in London. His next four novels were similarly refused, as were most of the articles he submitted to the press for a decade. Shaw’s initial literary work earned him less than 10 shillings a year. A fragment posthumously published asAn Unfinished Novelin 1958 (but written 1887–88) was his final false start in fiction. Theatre Guild, a theatrical society founded inNew York Cityin 1918 for the production of high-quality, noncommercial American and foreign plays. The guild, founded by Lawrence Langner (1890–1962), departed from the usualtheatrepractice in that its board of directors shared the responsibility for choice of plays, management, and production. The first two seasons, which included plays by Jacinto Benavente, St. John Ervine,John Masefield, andAugust Strindberg, demonstrated the artistic soundness of the plan. Following the world premiere ofGeorge Bernard Shaw’sHeartbreak Housein 1920, the guild became Shaw’s American agent, producing 15 of his plays, including world premieres ofBack to MethuselahandSaint Joan.Eugene O’Neill’slong association with the guild began with its production ofMarco Millions1928. Other American authors whose works were produced by the guild includedSidney Howard,William Saroyan,Maxwell Anderson, and Robert Sherwood—allPulitzer Prizewinners. Many distinguished actors appeared in Theatre Guild productions, includingHelen HayesinCaesar and CleopatraandAlla NazimovainMourning Becomes Electra.Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt first acted as a team there inFerenc Molnár’sGuardsmanand went on to act together in many other notable guild productions, such asArms and the ManandThe Taming of the Shrew. George Bernard Shaw, (born July 26, 1856,Dublin, Ireland—died November 2, 1950, Ayot St. Lawrence,Hertfordshire, England),Irishcomic dramatist, literary critic, and socialist propagandist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925.in
SUMMARY: The Apple Cart, which was completed in December 1928, is a wry political satire by George Bernard Shaw. Its plot concerns a monarch who is assaulted by his elected cabinet. They feel that the king is too meddlesome and threaten to resign if he does not sign an ultimatum, which in effect would strip him of his authority and turn him into a powerless figurehead.
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