Bernard Shaw

How He Lied to Her Husband Bernard Shaw

Like many other works of mine, this playlet is a piece doccasioti. In 1905 it happened that Mr Arnold Daly, who was then playing the part of Napoleon inT heM an of Destiny inN ew York, found that whilst the play was too long to take a secondary place in the evenings performance, it was too short to suffice by itself. I therefore took advantage of four days continuous rain during a holiday in the north of Scotland to write How He Lied To Her Husband forM rD aly. In his hands, it served its turn very effectively. I print it here as a sample of what can be done with even the most hackneyed stage framework by filling it in with an observed touch of actual humanity instead of with doctrinaire romanticism. Nothing in the theatre is staler than the situation of husband, wife and lover, or the fun of knockabout farce. I have taken both, and got an original play out of them, as anybody else can if only he will look about him for his material instead of plagiarizing Othello and the thousand plays that have proceeded onO thello sromantic assumptions and false point of honor.