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

116 Bernard Shaw’s Remarkable Religion
example, he required an exemplar of ugly, hateful “goodness” to act as foil
to Dick Dudgeon’s attractive, compassionate “badness,” so he created Mrs.
Dudgeon, but he was careful to get rid of her as soon as she was no longer
needed by abruptly and unceremoniously killing her off. Often he goes
out of his way to show us a sympathetic side to unsympathetic characters.
Crampton is a thoroughly disagreeable man, but through the eloquence of
M’Comas we are made to see his side of things. Indeed, M’Comas himself
appears generally as a ridiculous old fogy when he is confronted by Dolly’s
outrageousness, yet here he is shown as a sympathetic and effective solicitor
(as Dolly points out). Sometimes this balanced presentation of character
can be quite dramatic, as in the case of De Stogumber in Saint Joan,
who is driven mad when he witnesses the consequences of his fanatical
hatred. Shaw understood that hateful people who commit dreadful acts do
exist, but as “an interpreter of life” from his own philosophical vantage, he
felt bound to find dramatic ways to say that despite the undoubted presence
of both good and evil, there are no real saints or villains.
He used other techniques besides the sympathetic portrayal of character
to check the tendency of the audience to judge his portraits. The atmosphere
of playfulness and paradox that pervades many of the plays keeps
the audience off balance and uncertain just what to take seriously. His
overt embracing of theatricality and, especially in his later plays, figments
of fantasy and echoes of myth serve the same purpose. He may have been
more successful with the latter technique, for his use of theatricality and
especially his undisguised flaunting of the theatrical conventions of his
time have confused some readers and spectators, or at least some critics.
They have been led by the echoes of Sardou in The Man of Destiny and the
farcical improbabilities of You Never Can Tell to dismiss these pieces as
frivolous products of Shaw’s unfortunate tendency to play the clown, or
worse, as irresponsible attempts to pander to popular taste. But Shaw always
was true to his own vision, even though in many ways he was perfectly
at home with “popular taste” and actually rather fond of it.
Melodrama and Farce
It is important here to make clear distinctions. Shaw was quite at home with
the improbabilities, absurdities, and high spirits that we associate with
farce, and he was even capable of using certain elements characteristic of the
well-made play: the struggle over an incriminating letter and the threat of