''How He Lied to Her Husband'' is a one-act comedy play by
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
, who wrote it, at the request of actor
Arnold Daly
Arnold Daly (October 22, 1875 – January 13, 1927) was an American actor, playwright, and producer. He was the father of actress and Algonquin Round Table personality Blyth Daly.
Biography
He was born Peter Christopher Arnold Daly in Brook ...
, over a period of four days while he was
vacationing
A vacation (American English) or holiday (British English) is either a leave of absence from a regular job or an instance of leisure travel away from home. People often take a vacation during specific holiday observances or for specific festi ...
in Scotland in 1904. In its preface he described it 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." The play has often been interpreted as a kind of satirical commentary on Shaw's own highly successful earlier play ''
Candida'' (which one of the characters gets tickets to see).
It was first performed by Daly in New York as a
curtain raiser
A curtain raiser is a short performance, stage act, show, actor or performer that opens a show for the main attraction. The term is derived from the act of raising the stage curtain. The first person on stage has "raised the curtain".
The fashio ...
for ''
The Man of Destiny
''The Man of Destiny'' is an 1897 play by George Bernard Shaw, set in Italy during the early career of Napoleon. It was published as a part of ''Plays Pleasant'', which also included '' Arms and the Man'', '' Candida'' and '' You Never Can Tell. ...
''. The original 1905 London cast were
Harley Granville-Barker
Harley Granville-Barker (25 November 1877 – 31 August 1946) was an English actor, director, playwright, manager, critic, and theorist. After early success as an actor in the plays of George Bernard Shaw, he increasingly turned to directi ...
as Henry Apjohn,
A. G. Poulton as Teddy Bompas, and
Gertrude Kingston
Gertrude Kingston (24 September 1862 – 7 November 1937) (born Gertrude Angela Kohnstamm) was an actress, an English actor-manager and artist.
Early life
Kingston was born in Islington in London, the daughter of merchant Heiman Kohnstamm and h ...
as Aurora Bompas.
Characters
*Her Lover (Henry Apjohn)
*Her Husband (Teddy Bompas)
*Herself (Aurora Bompas)
Plot
The three-character play is set in the drawing room of a flat located on
Cromwell Road
Cromwell Road is a major London road in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, designated as part of the A4. It was created in the 19th century and is said to be named after Richard Cromwell, son of Oliver Cromwell, who once owned a hous ...
in London. Shaw describes Henry Apjohn as "a very beautiful youth, moving as in a dream, walking as on air," while Aurora Bompas has "an air of being a young and beautiful woman but as a matter of hard fact, she is, dress and pretensions apart, a very ordinary
South Kensington
South Kensington, nicknamed Little Paris, is a district just west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with ...
female of about 37, hopelessly inferior in physical and spiritual distinction to the beautiful youth." The third character is Aurora's husband Teddy, "a robust, thicknecked, well groomed city man, with a strong chin but a blithering eye and credulous mouth."
Aurora is distressed because she has misplaced some poems, in which she is identified by name, written for her with declarations of love by the impetuous Henry. She suspects her sister-in-law Georgina stole them from her workbox and is concerned she will read them to Aurora's husband Teddy.
Henry suggests they confront Teddy with the truth, "quietly, hand in hand" and depart – "without concealment and subterfuge, freely and honestly, in full honor and self-respect" – for their planned evening at the theatre. (Henry has purchased tickets for ''
Candida'' – the popular Shaw comedy which Henry and Aurora's situation closely resembles – because ''
Lohengrin
Lohengrin () is a character in German Arthurian literature. The son of Parzival (Percival), he is a knight of the Holy Grail sent in a boat pulled by swans to rescue a maiden who can never ask his identity. His story, which first appears in Wolf ...
'' was sold out.) The two engage in a discussion about the merits of revealing their affair until Teddy arrives and confronts Henry with his poetry.
The young man tries to convince him they were inspired by
Aurora
An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of bri ...
, the
goddess of dawn, rather than his wife, and assures him he has no interest in the woman Teddy married . . . which the
cuckolded man finds so insulting he demands Henry admit how desirable Aurora is. Henry finally confesses his love for Aurora, which pleases Teddy so much he proposes he have the poems published on "the finest paper, sumptuous binding, everything first class" as a tribute to his wife. "What shall we call the volume?," Teddy asks. "''To Aurora'', or something like that, eh?," to which Henry replies, "I should call it ''How He Lied to Her Husband''."
Preface
Shaw stated that, "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 on Othello's romantic assumptions and false point of honour."
Relation to ''Candida''
The play followed the huge success of ''Candida'', which came to be labelled "Candidamania". Shaw wrote it as a response to the "New York ''Hausfrau's'' conception of his 'Candida'". According to
Archibald Henderson
Archibald Henderson (January 21, 1783 – January 6, 1859) was the longest-serving Commandant of the Marine Corps, serving from 1820 to 1859. His name is learned by all recruits at Marine recruit training (Boot Camp) as the "Grand old man of th ...
"It gave rise to the usual misunderstandings incident to the production of a new Shaw play, many of the critics fatuously imagining that Shaw was only making fun of his own Candida!"" Henderson adds that the play is intended to be "after the Ibsen model" and to present "the obverse of Candida—in farce, not in tragicomedy. This little topsy-turvy knockabout farce is the reductio ad absurdum of the Candidamaniacs. The persistent misinterpretation of the meaning and purpose of this little farce finally compelled Shaw to cable: "''Need I say that anyone who imagines that How He Lied to Her Husband retracts Candida, or satirises it, or travesties it, or belittles it in any way, understands neither the one nor the other?''"
Adaptations
Frank Launder
Frank Launder (28 January 1906 – 23 February 1997) was a British writer, film director and producer, who made more than 40 films, many of them in collaboration with Sidney Gilliat.
Early life and career
He was born in Hitchin, Hertfordshire ...
and
Cecil Lewis adapted Shaw's play for a 1931 British
short film
A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...
directed by Lewis and starring
Edmund Gwenn
Edmund Gwenn (born Edmund John Kellaway; 26 September 1877 – 6 September 1959) was an English actor. On film, he is best remembered for his role as Kris Kringle in the Christmas film ''Miracle on 34th Street'' (1947), for which he won t ...
as Teddy, Vera Lennox as Aurora, and Robert Harris as Henry.
A July 1937
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, D.A. Clarke-Smith, and Derek Williams.
In 1956,
as Aurora, as part of an evening of three one-act plays.