Here's another great addition from intern Craig Nadler. Hope you enjoy!
With the (unofficial) start of wedding season upon us (June-September), it's of no surprise that today marks the wedding anniversary of Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw. Shaw wrote more than 60 plays during his lifetime (1856-1950) and on this day, June 1, in 1898, he married Charlotte Payne-Townsend. What I find most interesting about the Shaw-Payne-Townsend nuptials is that both professed distaste for matrimony! At the time, both George and Charlotte were in their early forties and their marriage was a marriage blanc, which means that it was made for economic or financial reasons. Regardless of the motivations, the two were married for forty-five years! The length of Shaw's relationship still baffles biographers to this day.
George Bernard Shaw was a socialist, meaning that he fought for equal economic opportunities for all people as well as the cooperative ownership of different economic systems. He wrote many brochures and speeches advocating his socialist ideals. In his writing, Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, heath care and class privilege; ultimately, he found them all defective! Shaw wanted to see equal political rights for men and women, fewer abuses of the working class and a universal European healthy lifestyle.
One of Shaw's most famous plays is Pygmalion, written in 1913. Pygmalion was adopted from Greek mythology and examines complex human relationships in the social world. In the play, phonetics professor Henry Higgins tries to refine the speech and manner of a Cockney girl, Eliza Doolittle. "Cockney" refers to the Londoners living in the East End of the city. Usually, the Cockney dialect is considered to be an uncivilized form of speech. Before her lessons with Professor Higgins, Eliza's speech chock-full of certain features that characterize the cockney form: H-dropping ("Consider yourself at 'ome"), the substitution of me for my ("'At's me book you go 'ere") and the use of the double negative ("I ain't seen nothing").
Shaw's play has had such an impact on the world that it has been adapted and retold in various forms throughout history! Has anyone seen the musical My Fair Lady? Or seen the movie She's All That? Both are retellings of Shaw's play! However, I don't think that these modern adaptations would receive George's seal of approval. After all, both films end with the Higgins and Eliza characters in love! And, as proven by his marriage blanc to Charlotte, Shaw was not a fan of mushy endings. It's a good thing that he stuck to writing and left the love stuff to cupid!
