Bernard Shaw's Remarkable Religion: A Faith That Fits the Facts

90 Bernard Shaw’s Remarkable Religion
Dramatic Techniques
It is not enough just to dismiss conventional, or traditional, techniques. A
new artistic vision requires a new method of presentation—new techniques.
Shaw experimented considerably before arriving at a distinctly
Shavian mode, a style optimally suited to his particular perspective: an
aesthetic of Shavian realism to match the realism of Shavian vision. His
difficulty was in large part that his picture of the world was so unusual, so
foreign to anything his audience expected, that he could not merely
present it as he saw it, for they would insist on trying to twist it into something
familiar, something they could understand. Failing to do this, they
were merely shocked or annoyed. The evolution of Shaw’s distinct style
was driven by his various attempts, first to reach his public—to have his
plays produced or published—and second truly to communicate with them
once he had their attention.
At least three distinct yarns are woven into the fabric of Shaw’s particular
dramatic technique, from the beginning of its evolution to it most mature
form. First is his use of traditional theatrical forms and conventions,
second his insistence that his characters be “real” people shown from their
own point of view, and third the belief that a dramatist must be an “interpreter
of life,” not merely a recording machine. The second two are the
pillars of his dramatic realism and grow directly out of his view of the
world. The first is not our major concern, but a few words are necessary to
clarify its relation to the essentials of the Shavian dramatic method. A serious
artist conveys a vision of the truth. The style of such an artist is not
an aesthetic end in itself but a means to a philosophical end. Methods are
always shaped by purposes. When Shaw used popular theatrical conventions,
he did so exactly as far as it suited his purposes. Whenever the popular
forms conveyed a vision different from his, he either abandoned or
subverted them. That is why he cheerfully admitted using the old-fashioned
tricks of comedy and melodrama but strenuously objected to any
suggestion that he allied himself to the well-made play.
The Well-Made Play
The well-made play is not defined by the various tricks it uses, for most of
these go back at least to Plautus and have been brazenly exploited by such
certified dramatic geniuses as Shakespeare and Molière. The well-made
play represents something foreign to genius: a particular aesthetic, the expression
of a petty worldview that posits economy and respectability as