Uzbekistan state university of world languages english language and literature

1.2. About famous works of Bernard Shaw(Thee groups of Shaw’s play. Plays , reflecting historical events).
Three groups of plays for Puritans is a collection of plays which was written by George Bernard Shaw. It was published in 1901. It consists of three plays: “ The Devil’s disciple” (1897) , “ Caesar and Cleopatra “ (1898) and “ Captain Brassbound’s Conversation” ( 1900) with a long preface by him in three parts in which he expounds many of his thoughts on drama.
“Three plays for Puritans” continued to became the traditional Shavian preface. It was an introductory essay which was written in an electric prose style.” The Devil’s Disciple” is a play which was shown in New Hampshire  during the American revolution  and it is an inversion of traditional melodrama.” Caesar and Cleopatra” is Shaw’s first great play. In this play, Cleopatra is a vicious and spoiled character and she is 16 -year-old child. The play depicts that Caesar is an austere and lonely man who is both philosopher and soldier. The play’s great success indicates its treatment of Caesar as a credible study in magnanimity and “original morality” rather than as a superhuman hero on a stage. The third play, “Captain Brassbound’s Conversion” , is a sermon against various kinds of folly masquerading as a justice and duty.
“ The Devil’s disciple “ is George Bernard Shaw’s eighth play and it was the first financial success of the author that assisted to affirm his career as a playwright. It was about Colonial America during Revolutionary era. In this play , the main character is Richard Dudgeon , and the play tells the story of him . Richard Dudgeon is a local outcast and self-proclaimed “Devil’s disciple’’. In the play, Shaw indicated his love of paradox that Dudgeon sacrifices himself in a Christ-like gesture in spite of his infernal allegiance.
Casts and characters of “ The Devil’s disciple”

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  `Dick` , Dudgeon – the rakish reprobate of play’s title . He finds himself an unlucky hero.
  
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  Judith Anderson
  
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  Anne Dudgeon
  
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  Christy
  
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  Essie
  
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  General Burgoyne
  
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  Lawyer Hawkins
  
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  Sergeant
  
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  Major Swindon
  

“ Caesar and Cleopatra’’ is a great play that indicates the relationship between Julius Caesar and Cleopatra. It was the first play that performed in a single staged reading. It was shown at Newcastle upon Tyne on 15^th of March in 1899. In 1906 , this play was produced in New York and in 1907, in London at the Savoy Theatre. In “ Caesar and Cleopatra” , one night , the aging Julius Caesar meets young and teenage Cleopatra by chance under the Egyptian moon. At that time, there is a turmoil there. Civil war torn the nation into two parts as Cleopatra and her younger brother vie for the country and throne. Caesar falls in love with Cleopatra and he shows his best to help her to be a great ruler of the country that favors honor , wisdom and clemency as a means of government. However , when Egyptian insurgents besiege the castle at Alexandria , Caesar may not be able to keep Egypt together or even he escapes from Alexandria alive , he lets alone the greater challenge of managing the headstrong Cleopatra. This play is a less known work from one of the most popular playwrights. It is exploration of vengeance, mercy , power, and politics.
Characters of “ Caesar and Cleopatra”.

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  Cleopatra – the sixteen-year old queen of Egypt. She is at war with her husband-brother.
  
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  Caesar- the imrerior of Rome.
  
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  Ptolemy Dionysus- the brother of Cleopatra. He was killed in the battle against Caesar for Cleopatra’s crown.
  
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  Ftatateeta – Cleopatra’s nurse
  
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  Britannus – Caesar’s secretary
  
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  Rufio – a roman officer and the slayer of the nurse
  
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  Pothinus – guardian. He plots against Caesar and killed by Ftatateeta.
  
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  Appollodorus –a Sicilian
  

“Captain Brassbound’s Conversion” was the first American production that Ellen Terry starred in 1907. “Captain Brassbound’s Conversion” explores rhe relationship between revenge , forgiveness, law and justice. George Bernard Shaw added that he took his information about Morocco from Cunninghame Graham’s book named ,Mogreb-el-acksa ( Morocco the Most Holly) , “Captain Brassbound’s Conversation would never been written without this book. In this play , the story about the legal dispute was derived from the information that provided the same case which had been given to him by a Frederick Jackson , of Hindhead.

Characters of “ Captain Brassbound ‘s Conversion”

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  Lady Cicely Waynflete
  
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  Sir Howard Hallam
  
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  Captain Brassbound
  
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  Rankin
  
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  Drinkwater
  
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  Redbrook
  
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  Johnson
  
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  Marzo
  
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  Sidi El Assif
  
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  The Cadi
  
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  Osman
  
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  Hassan
  
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  Captain Hamlin Kearney, U.S.N.
  
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  American Bluejacket
  

Bernard Shaw’s genius lay in examining the habits and characteristics of people who get things done in the world. It seemed that somewhat paradoxical for the writer tothe history in two directions, namely past and future. However , this tendency in dramaturgy demonstrates that he was more interested in people who made history than studied it. Shaw ‘s concepts about history were encyclopedic in scope and they were very clear that were evidenced by the extensive historical reference points for thematic concerns. As is so often pointed out in Shaw studies, the prefaces and indeed the printed copies of the plays mattered a great deal to Shaw, and for a much larger reason than copyright protection would suggest. Shavian characters do speak of history to make cogent arguments in the plays themselves, but there is a clear distinction between these and the preface references. In the latter, Shaw provides a context for the issues that a particular play raises. On the stage, dialogue and actions mention or allude to historical events and figures in terms of ongoing situations, in the language of the moment, often revolving around a challenge to conventional thinking.

Matthew Wikander focuses his analysis of Shaw and the history play on Shaw's ‘claim to find a higher historical truth than that found by pedants worrying the details’. Equally prominent in the plays about historical figures is Shaw's interest in the examination of character rather than a reflection of events for their own sake. Gale Larson's observations about Shaw's methodology for incorporating history into play texts focus on three overriding concerns: examining a range of sources, ‘privileging’ materials from those akin to his own views, and, most importantly, ‘rearranging’ history for the stage to align with his ‘unique perception and interpretation of history and stage exigencies’.
Seeing Shaw's history plays in this light reflects his modernism, but the attitudes and lenses of judgment he employed simultaneously reveal his nineteenth-century influences, Romantic and Victorian. Shavian characters and their desires to change the world as individuals nod to Romanticism's political urgency; Shaw's recurrent portrayals of powerful, imperial leadership in heroic terms place him squarely in the tradition of Victorian obsession with historical representation. J. L. Wisenthal's assessment of Shaw on the heroic incorporates references to William Blake, Thomas Carlyle, and Walter Houghton's Victorian Frame of Mind for its emphasis on hero-worship of great men as substitution for God worship.