Major Barbara

Synopsis

Written in 1905. How do you change the world? What happens when your ideals depend upon money, and money from corrupt causes? When Major Barbara's struggling Salvation Army Mission is offered financial support from Bodger's drink's empire and her own father's vast weapons' business, she is faced with an agonising choice. Can morality be upheld by immoral means? Shaw's superb comedy of ideas tackles issues which are startlingly alive even now - the corruption of ideals by money, the growing power of Big Business over human freedom and the dilemma of accepting an inheritance tainted by blood.

Our Review:

5 March 2008

George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara (1905), which is the first Travelex £10 Season production in the NT Olivier this year, was once described as the first English play which has for its theme the struggle between two religions in one mind.

That mind belongs to a Salvation Army officer, Barbara Undershaft, whose father, Andrew Undershaft, is an all-powerful arms manufacturer who refuses to distinguish between business and morality and argues that no man’s soul can be saved until he is well fed, properly housed and fully employed.

Barbara’s vocation among the destitute and violent is shattered when her father signs a cheque to save the East End shelter. Money talks, whatever its provenance. Barbara’s chance to renew her religious faith comes when her fiancée, the Greek scholar Adolphus Cusins, is offered her father’s succession at the weapons factory and she the challenge of enlightening its contented work force, the acceptable face of capitalism.

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Latest User Review

Manolis D. - 5 July 2008:

Very good production with excellent cast. Higgins was superb,and Atwell was the week link. A very interesting play that i hadn't seen before....

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