About the work
Comedy in four acts by George Bernard Shaw, completed in the summer of 1896 and published in 1898 in the collection "Plays Pleasant". A planned London premiere in 1897 collapsed when the cast judged the script unplayable; it finally received its first performance as a closed Stage Society production on 26 November 1899 at the Royalty Theatre, London, followed by its first public showing in 1900 at the Strand Theatre. The German-language premiere took place in Berlin on 24 September 1906, directed by Victor Barnowsky.
Plot
After eighteen years abroad, the self-assured writer Margaret Clandon returns to an English seaside resort with her grown children Gloria and the twins Dolly and Phil. Over a lunch that brings together the penniless dentist Valentine, who has fallen for Gloria, and his landlord, it emerges that the landlord is the family's estranged, never-mentioned father. Gently pressed by the waiter William, the father and the coolly rational Gloria are both forced, against their own principles, to confront their feelings.
Cultural significance
Shaw meant the play as a counterpart to Oscar Wilde's society comedy "The Importance of Being Earnest" that would not stop at pure farce but take real feeling seriously; its premiere was delayed for years after actors judged the script unplayable. The omniscient, discreet waiter William remains one of the most memorable minor characters in Shaw's early work.