One of George Bernard Shaw's most performed and studied plays, "Arms and the Man" is a classic example of Shaw's comedic wit. First produced in 1894, the play is set during the Serbo-Bulgarian war and tells the story of Raina Petkoff, a young Bulgarian woman, who is engaged to Sergius, a soldier away at war whom she idolizes. While both her father and fiancé are away fighting, Raina, at home with her mother, has a very innocent and romantic idea...

Androcles and the Lion is a 1912 play written by George Bernard Shaw. The play is Shaw's retelling of the tale of Androcles, a slave who is saved by the requiting mercy of a lion. In the play, Shaw portrays Androcles to be one of the many Christians being led to the Colosseum for torture. Characters in the play exemplify several themes and takes on both modern and supposed early Christianity, including the cultural clash between Jesus' teachings and...

Gregory Lunn and Mrs. Juno are in love, having met during a sea voyage. On a sofa in a hotel where both are staying, they discuss their feelings. They are both already married, so they decide they must part, but are unable to do so. They then recognize the voices of their respective spouses, apparently staying together at the same hotel. They leave in confusion. Mrs. Lunn and Mr. Sibthorpe Juno enter and sit together on the same sofa that the other...

In the preface, Shaw speaks of the pervasive discouragement and poverty in Europe after World War I, and relates these issues to inept government. Simple primitive societies, he says, were easily governable while the civilised societies of the twentieth century are so complex that learning to govern them properly can't be accomplished within the human lifespan: People with experience enough to serve the purpose fall into senility and die. Shaw's solution...

Captain Charles Edstaston is assigned to the Imperial Russian court in Saint Petersburg, during the 34-year rule of Empress Catherine the Great, and brings his fiancée, Claire, with him. In the midst of court intrigue and palace politics, primarily instigated by Catherine's favored statesman and military leader, the drunken, ill-mannered, but crafty Prince Patiomkin.

"Candida" is the story of its title character, a woman who is married to the Reverend Morell. Candida is a woman of many talents and her husband has his wife to thank for much of his success. When a young man by the name of Marchbanks professes his love for Candida, Morell must reexamine his relationship with his wife and ultimately discovers a side to her that he never knew existed. "Candida" is a play written during a time of great empowerment of...

First staged in 1906, "The Doctor's Dilemma" is a play that revolves around a community of doctors, most specializing, unbeknownst to them, in different types of expensive, fraudulent treatments. Dr. Ridgeon, who has actually discovered a vaccine for tuberculosis, is conflicted about administering his limited remedy, for the husband of a woman he is in love with can pay, but his kind yet poverty-stricken colleague Dr. Blenkinsop cannot. Shaw's drama...

A room in the War Office on 1 April 1912. General Mitchener is in a state of considerable anxiety about the number of Suffragettes chaining themselves to government buildings. He has had all the railings removed, but is informed by an orderly that another suffragette has padlocked herself to the door scraper. Surprisingly, he has received a letter from the Prime Minister, Balsquith, telling him to release the woman and let her into the building. When...

Ellie Dunn, her father, and her fiancé are invited to one of Hesione Hushabye's infamous dinner parties, to be held at the house of her father, the eccentric Captain Shotover, an inventor in his late 80s who is trying to create a psychic ray that will destroy dynamite. The house is built in the shape of the stern of a ship. Lady Utterword, Shotover's other daughter, arrives from Australia, but he pretends not to recognise her. Hesione says they are...

"The Man of Destiny" is one of Shaw's shorter works, just a one-act play, in which we see the mastery of character development that is so common to the playwright's works. The play is an investigation of a young twenty-seven year old general by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte who has yet to achieve the accomplishments for which make him such an important figure in world history. In the play, we find him waiting impatiently at an inn on the road between...