If this seems more melodramatic than other Shaw plays you've seen, that's because this was Shaw's way of satirizing the then popular genre. It was one of his earlier plays (1897), written after three years of reviewing what he deemed bad plays . The idea was to show that there WERE better ones available. Amused by critics who called The Devil's Disciple "original" and noted gleefully that he deliberately used many of the hackneyed devices of the current theater.

The Puritan in this first of his "Three Plays for Puritans," is of course the disagreeable Mrs. Dudgeon, a woman who bears with "intensely recalcitrant resignation" the blows the Lord has let fall on her head. Shaw made much of the contrast between the puritanical Mrs. Dudgeon and her son Dick and in his preface to the 1900 edition of the play compared Mrs. D to Mrs. Clenman in Dickens' Little Dorrit.

Though the American actor Richard Mansfield produced the play as well as starring in it, he had little liking for Shaw, either as a man or an author. He didn't change his mind even when he continued to successfully tour with the play. When somone told him that he ought to thank God each night for finding such a play he said that he did —but always with an added question: "Why O God did it have to be by Shaw?"

When DD was show in England, it proved as popular as in America. A 1950 revival at City Center starred the great Maurice Evans as Dick Dudgeon and was so well received that it moved to Broadway. The last New York production of the play was at the Circle in the Square (11/13/1988 - 2/19/1989) with Philip Bosco as General Burgoyne, Victor Garber as Richard Dudgeon and Judith Anderson as Roxanne Hart. A 1959 film version starred Kirk Douglas, as Dick, Burt Lancaster, as the Parson, Eva Le Gallienne, as Mrs. Dudgeon, and Sir Laurence Olivier, as Burgoyne.

And, since theater goers cannot live by words alone, no matter how clever, Restivo Restaurant, just down the street from the Irish Rep, on the northwest corner of 22nd Street and 7th Avenue, is a charming and delicious place for lunch or dinner. The menu is diverse and delicious. The atmosphere is warm and quiet, the service pleasant and the prices very reasonable. The desserts are irresistible, and if you go to a matinee, as I did, the brunch is a real bargain.

For more about Bernard Shaw, including links to reviews of his plays, see our Shaw Backgrounder.