"GETTING MARRIED" A CONVERSATION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 153, 27 June 1908, Page 16

"GETTING MARRIED" A CONVERSATION.

"(From Our Special Correspondent.) [ IX>""S"IX">N, May IS. j A new play by Air. Bernard Shaw, the foremost of living English dramatists, is the event of the theatrical season. "Getting Married " is the title of what Mr. Shaw calls his Conversation, and marriage is the subject of its argument. The first performance took place at the Haymarket Theatre on Tuesday afternoon. In an amusing interview beforehand, the author described the play as his revenge on the critics for " their gross ingratitude, their arrant Philistinism, their shameless intellectual laziness, their low tastes, their hatred of good work, their puerile romanticism, their disloyalty to dramatic liaerature, their stupendous ignorance, their susceptibility to cheap sentiment, their insensibility to honour, virtue, intellectual honesty, and everything that constitutes strength and dignity in human character." After this cyclonic outburst the genial dramatist proceeded to indicate the nature of his revenge. " There will," he said, "be nothing but talk, talk, talk, talk—Shaw talk. The characters will seem to-the wretched-critics to be simply a row oi-anaws, all arguing with one another on totally uninteresting subjects. Shaw in a bishop's aprOn will argue with Shaw in a general* suniform. Shaw in an alderman s gown will argue with shaw dressed as a beadle. Shaw dressed, as a bridegroom will be wedded to Shaw in petticoats. The thing will be hideous, in- j describabie —an eternity of brain-racking duintss. And yet they will have to.sit it, out. THey will, suffer—suffer horribly, inhumanly " —and much more tojthe same effect.

"Getting Married l " has neither plot nor story. It is an argument, (lasting nearly three hours, and carried- on b* twelve or thirteen characters. On the wedding morning, a bride has been reading a pamphlet on the injustice of the marriage laws from the" woman's point ot view, with' the result that she is frightened, and wants to " back out." Curiously enough, the bridegroom has been spending his morning reading Belfort Bax's essay on " Men's Wrongs," and he, too, is greatly perturbed about getting married. The relatives assemble and debate the question of marriage. The bride's father, the Bishop of Chelsea, and her uncle, General Bridgenorth, Miss Lesbia Gratham, who confesses herself with pride a regular old maid, Mr. Reginald Bridgenorth and h*3 young wife. fr~*~ whom he has become separated, Mr. St. John Hotchkiss, . Mrs. Reginald's lover, the Bishop's wife, an alderman greengrocer, a celibate priest, a lady mayor and a beadle; —aU these widely different types contribute to the " argument. Modem marriage is assailed on 'all hands, though the kind?-hearted greengrocer "puts up a sort of defence. "Marriage is tolerable enough in its way," he argues, j" if you are easy-going, and don't expect too much from it. But it doesn't bear thinking about.. The great :thing .is to get the young couple tide np before they know (.what they're letting themselves m lor." Alter the company have talked the problem'inside oit and upside down, they try to - draw up a revised form of marriage coniract, but as nobody can agree about tße term pf the contract; this plan comes to nothing. Finally, the Mayoress, in a sort of hypnotic trance, delivers a long and. very eloquent; speech, ; pleading for the recognition, in marriage, of woman's independence andl.individuality. .And in the midst of it all the bride and bridegroom slip away and get married. Brilliant, witty, > profound, farcical— these" aire" familiar terms in relation to p. Shaw play; and they all apply to "Getting' Married."' The critics appear to have enjoyed the first two acts, and to have •been puzzled and bored by the third. Mr. Shaw triumphantly supplies the explanation of this phenomenon. " The first act," he says,"" was sheer farcical comedy, and consequently easily to be comprehended Jby the ; most ordinary understanding. The second was sociological comedy, and naturally more' difficult of comprehension. The third, .on the other hand, was a compound of pure instructive and religion, jfnd to how many people, I. would ask, do such things make any real appeal; how many have either the desire or the ability to grasp the significance -of the words?"

When "Getting Married" is published, there ought to be a piquant preface on "My Revenge on the Critics."