The 1920 play is set just before World War I. The line "But how can you love a liar?" is spoken by the rich bohemian woman Mrs. Hushabye, and the line that follows it is spoken by Ellie, a poor young woman who is in love with Mrs. Hushabye's lying husband, Hector. Ellie intends to marry a rich capitalist, Boss Mangan.
Mangan, trying to extricate himself from the planned marriage, reveals what a liar and a cheater he is, but Ellie still wants to marry him. She says: "If we women were particular about men's characters, we should never get married at all, Mr Mangan."
Hector explains his behavior:
HECTOR. What am I to do? I can't fall in love; and I can't hurt a woman's feelings by telling her so when she falls in love with me. And as women are always falling in love with my moustache I get landed in all sorts of tedious and terrifying flirtations in which I'm not a bit in earnest....Mangan reaches a breaking point and declares he's getting the hell out of the house, "Heartbreak House," where all the action takes place. Hector makes a move to go too and to turn it into a ridiculous romantic escapade:
HECTOR: Let us all go out into the night and leave everything behind us.I thought you might enjoy those lines. There's much more, of course. Shaw was writing a play deliberately in the manner of Anton Chekhov. Note the seagull on the set in my photograph (at the middle of the right edge).
MANGAN. You stay where you are, the lot of you. I want no company, especially female company.
ELLIE. Let him go. He is unhappy here. He is angry with us.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Go, Boss Mangan; and when you have found the land where there is happiness and where there are no women, send me its latitude and longitude; and I will join you there.
Chekhov famously said "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there" (and "The Seagull" is the Chekhov play with the last-act gunshot). So when Captain Shotover brought out a box of dynamite to tinker with in Act One, I figured Shaw meant us to see the Chekhov joke and to expect an explosion in the next act. We're expected to anticipate the whole lot of them blowing up and to contemplate, throughout, whether that isn't what they all deserve.
AFTERTHOUGHT: What is the difference between "escape" and "escapade"?
"Escape" + "ade" suggests a drink that produces escape.
Yes, I know that's not right! Do you expect me to look it up in a dictionary?
Speaking of drink, Captain Shotover (a very old man) speaks often of "the seventh degree of concentration," which seems to be some mystical state that he learned about in his seafaring journeys, some 1920s New Age-iness. Late in the play, Ellie declares:
ELLIE. There seems to be nothing real in the world except my father and Shakespeare. [Hector]'s tigers are false; Mr Mangan's millions are false; there is nothing really strong and true about [Mrs. Hushabye] but her beautiful black hair; and Lady Utterword's is too pretty to be real. The one thing that was left to me was the Captain's seventh degree of concentration; and that turns out to be—
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Rum.
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38 comments:
Does Heartbreak House have Two Front Doors? Is this play about the Fords?
The Dems ginned up a GOP War Against Women. Now we have a War Between Men and Women. This doesn’t turn out well except for the lesbians. Tribalism run amuck.
If we women were particular about men's characters, we should never get married at all, Mr Mangan.
Fucking splooge stooges.
Politics aside, please. That sounded and looked like a pleasurable evening.
What about Ambuscade?
I have always defined that as a place of ambush but some sources define it as the ambush, itself.
Shaw was a devoted Socialist and rich men were always villains.
"Politics aside, please. That sounded and looked like a pleasurable evening."
It was a pleasurable evening watching the Brewers win a game and get into a tie for first place in the NL Central. We had great fun at the matinee too.
I think a play in which a cannon is wheeled into the living room in the first act is a great device to keep the audience from leaving early.
"There seems to be nothing real in the world except my father and Shakespeare."
And they may be jivin' too.
Was it funny? I just saw a production of Heartbreak House last weekend in New York and they really played up the Oscar Wilde influence and it was very very funny, but you could also make it a much more melancholy experience.
One of the greatest things about Shaw is that he never cheats. He actually wants to convince his audience. He's not setting fire to straw men for the delectation of the already converted, so he always lets his opponents make their best case. He also doesn't forget to be entertaining. It's incredibly refreshing compared to most of today's political art.
One of Shaw's worst plays.
Rum? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!! Or, for Original Mike (and probably Kavanaugh), HOPALICIOUS!
(And then I gave a standing ovation.)
I think a play in which a cannon is wheeled into the living room in the first act is a great device to keep the audience from leaving early.
Chekhov's cannon. If you see a cannon rolled in during the first act, it must go off in the final.
Brett's song:
"There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong
I dreamed a dream in times gone by
When hope was high and life worth living
I dreamed, that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted
But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
As they turn your dream to shame
….
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather
I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream
I dreamed"
Hushabye
The furtive sigh, the blackened eye
The words, "I'll love you 'til the day I die"
The self-deception that believes the lie
I wish I were in love again
I think a play in which a cannon is wheeled into the living room in the first act is a great device to keep the audience from leaving early.
Needs a spoiler alert!
I think a play in which a cannon is wheeled into the living room in the first act is a great device to keep the audience from leaving early.
Chekhov's cannon. If you see a cannon rolled in during the first act, it must go off in the final.
I think that might be Tchaikovsky
According to Teachout - this is one of Shaw's least popular plays.
Shaw was 63 in 1919, and continued to write plays, none of them very good. His mental clock seems to have stopped in 1913, and his political comments on the USSR, Hitler, and WW2 are painful to read.
He's the poster child for term limits on playwrights.
The problem with local theater is the acting is so bad. Once you've seen something performed on Broadway, TV, or the movies - you can't help but notice.
Can you love a liar?
Meade does.
Can you love a liar? And it’s still a lie even if the liar believes the lie to be truthful.
I like and admire Shaw. He was a keen observer of the flaws and hypocrisies of Edwardian England. I've also read his account of his visit to Stalin's Russia. Hook, line, and sinker. Stalin granted him an interview. He wrote favorably of one of the greatest tyrants in human history. Shaw wasn't in his dotage. He wrote grammatical sentences that advanced logical observations (all of them wrong).......Anyway, if one of the most perceptive observers of the human condition can visit one of the greatest mass murderers of all time and come away with a favorable impression, does that give you an inkling of how a political bias can shape and deform one's judgment?
One of the greatest things about Shaw is that he never cheats. He actually wants to convince his audience. He's not setting fire to straw men for the delectation of the already converted, so he always lets his opponents make their best case. He also doesn't forget to be entertaining. It's incredibly refreshing compared to most of today's political art.
Amen, Ficta. In these respects, Shaw has little competition. Maybe from Stoppard, who must have been -- though I don't know if he has ever said so -- powerfully influenced by Shaw. (Definitely not from Prince.)
I wonder if the adherents of SlateStarCodex know about Shaw. They ought to. He approaches the Platonic ideal of "steelmanning" the other side's positions.
He did completely lose it at the end, though.
...if one of the most perceptive observers of the human condition can visit one of the greatest mass murderers of all time and come away with a favorable impression, does that give you an inkling of how a political bias can shape and deform one's judgment?
Great point, William. Shaw probably thought, "Meeting Stalin in person will show me who he truly is. He won't be able to fool me."
I guess Shaw overestimated his ability to evaluate people based on the holistic impressions they make -- demeanor, body language, word choices, etc. He would have done much better to evaluate the facts of the matter.
There might be a lesson here for the present day but for the life of me I can't imagine what it is.
Commie plays are the best sorts of plays.
Bravo. Encore. My two favorite writers interracting. There is a God. We can call it My Fair Lady of the Lake.
If there's a seagull onstage in the first act, I hope you wore a hat.
Two seagulls, Gertrude & Heathcliff..
"And as women are always falling in love with my moustache I get landed in all sorts of tedious and terrifying flirtations in which I'm not a bit in earnest...."
Impossible to hear or read this particular line and not think of Oscar Wilde's greatest play.
FDR looked into Uncle Joes eyes, saw his soul, and immediately knew Polish free elections were guaranteed.
"Can you love a liar?
Meade does."
I love you, Big Mike. No lie.
Big Mike is right, terrible play. I saw it at the Shaw Festival about 36 years ago. No one laughed, about half the audience left before intermission. More left then, some left after that.
@Meade, good thing, too, or your wife would probably ban me for life, and probably a few years after that. Your intervention is appreciated.
“Can you love a liar?
Meade does.”
Just what is Althouse lying about? Just gotta shake my head at the amount of vituperation being shown to Althouse because of this Kavanaugh business.
Just what is Althouse lying about?
From where I sit Althouse is lying — to herself — about her self-proclaimed “cruel neutrality.” I think she convinced herself, almost certainly wrongly, that Brett Kavanaugh would be the critical vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. He might be now, but not prior to Althouse joining her left wing looney friends in ignoring silly little things like laws, and witness accounts, and proof to believe that Christine Blasey Ford was groped at a party. Then it turns out that Althouse, who had a better start in life than perhaps 97% of the population, is jealous that Brett Kavanaugh got a start that was better than 99.8% of the population. As I wrote — a lie to yourself is still a lie.
Kavanaugh will be confirmed, or not. If not, then the GOP will hold the House handily and come out of November 6th with at least 56 senators, winning all or nearly all of the close races. And Trump will nominate someone further right than Kavanaugh. And if he is, then he will remember ...
I haven't seen or read this Shaw play, but I've seen several and read more. They are generally witty and amusing. Of course, they are all "dated" by now. What I don't understand is why anyone would think that because he wrote these plays Shaw's political or social opinions are worthy of our attention.
It's like looking to SNL for political insight.
"Lady Utterword's is too pretty to be real."
And Judge K is too good to be honest.....
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