''The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles: A Vision of Judgement'' is a 1934 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 ...
. The play is a satirical allegory about an attempt to create a utopian society on a Polynesian island that has recently emerged from the sea.
The play divided critics.
Edmund Wilson
Edmund Wilson Jr. (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972) was an American writer and literary critic who explored Freudian and Marxist themes. He influenced many American authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose unfinished work he edited for publi ...
described it as Shaw's only "silly play", in which the action seems to be purely whimsical. In contrast, Frederick McDowell wrote that Shaw had created "a symbolic fable" to expound his own "deeply felt ideas".
[Daniel J. Leary "About Nothing in Shaw's ''The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles''", ''Educational Theatre Journal'', Vol. 24, No. 2 (May, 1972), pp. 139-148.] The preface, in which Shaw appears to advocate the killing of useless individuals in a future society, has been considered to be distasteful by several commentators.
Creation
Shaw wrote the play in 1934, originally entitling it "the End of the Simpleton". Shaw added a note to his secretary suggesting that "the final title...will probably be The Unexpected Isles or something like that." It was first produced by the
Theatre Guild
The Theatre Guild is a theatrical society founded in New York City in 1918 by Lawrence Langner, Philip Moeller, Helen Westley and Theresa Helburn. Langner's wife, Armina Marshall, then served as a co-director. It evolved out of the work of the W ...
of New York at the Guild Theatre on February 18, 1935, directed by
Romney Brent
Romney Brent (born Romulo Larralde; 26 January 1902 – 24 September 1976) was a Mexican actor, director and dramatist. Most of his career was on stage in North America, but in the 1930s he was frequently seen on the London stage, on television ...
. A production in England followed at the Malvern Festival, July 29, 1935.
Plot
East Asian princess Prola and a priest Pra, decide to join with two European couples in a sexually communal "superfamily" to create a utopian community on an uninhabited island that has just emerged from the sea in an obscure outpost of the British Empire. They produce two mixed-race children, Maya and Vashti, who are intended to blend the qualities of the East and the West. The children have ideal refined sensibilities, but lack common sense.
Issie, a British clergyman, arrives on the island, dropped off by pirates. He is drawn into its idiosyncratic mores, eventually enthusiastically embracing the polygamous lifestyle by mating with Maya and Vashti and producing two children. This causes scandal in Britain, leading to a proposed invasion of the island to impose conventional morality. However, English politicians decide that the best course is for England to declare its own independence from the British Empire. At this point the Angel of the Lord appears, declares that the Last Judgement has come, and makes most of the characters disappear because they are useless. News arrives from Britain that large numbers of British politicians have also disappeared, along with most doctors.
Prola and Pra are left alone. Prola says they will begin anew to embrace the future and the force of life itself, since now the whole world is an "unexpected isle".
Preface
The play was published along with ''
The Six of Calais
''The Six of Calais'' is a one-act play by George Bernard Shaw. It was inspired by Auguste Rodin's sculpture ''The Burghers of Calais''. It is a historical comedy about the conflict between Edward III of England and his wife Philippa of Hainault ...
'' and ''
The Millionairess'' in 1936. The trio was later given the overall title "Plays Extravagant". The published version included a preface in which Shaw appeared to advocate the efficient mass killing of "useless" persons. Shaw speaks about the creation of the
Cheka
The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə), abbreviated ...
in the Soviet Union, which he asserts was necessary to deal with counter-revolutionaries and eliminate "lazy" individuals. He says that distaste for the suffering involved in punishments can be overcome by devising efficient and painless deaths for people who are of no use to the community:
Shaw says he introduced the fantasy of a Day of Judgement as a dramatic way of reimagining the logic of what has been happening in "the great Russian change, or any of the actual political changes which threaten to raise it in the National-Socialist and Fascist countries, and to go back to the old vision of a day of reckoning by divine justice for all mankind."
Reception
Critics at both the New York and London premieres generally expressed "confusion and disconcertment" at the work.
[Archibald Henderson, ''George Bernard Shaw: Man of the Century'', Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1956, p.640] Shaw was not pleased. In a booklet for the Malvern production, he wrote:
Shaw explained the play as a satire on spiritual utopianism. According to Bernard F. Dukore, in the Shavian fantasy of judgement "angels proclaim the world to belong to those who think, plan, and work for its betterment."
Erich Strauss considered the play to be evidence of Shaw's decline. He objected to "the use of allegorical figures. They are 'the four lovely phantasms who embody all the artistic, romantic and military ideals of our cultured suburbs,' to wit, 'Love, Pride, Heroism and Empire." Other critics have had a more favourable view. Daniel J. Leary saw the play as an anticipation of the
theatre of the absurd
The Theatre of the Absurd (french: théâtre de l'absurde ) is a post–World War II designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s. It is also a term for the style of ...
, and as an allegory about the embrace of nothingness.
Rodelle Weintraub sees it as a Freudian "dream play".
Alleged politics
The politics allegedly implied by the play have come in for severe criticism, though this may be influenced as much by the preface than the play itself.
[Michael Holroyd, "Belligerent romantic", ''The Guardian'', Saturday 16 December 2000.] In 1936, the reviewer of the published version in the ''
Times Literary Supplement'' wrote that, "In all the play and preface nothing has been said but that at the price of bloody tyranny we might achieve a set of social values different from those now held."
[T. F. Evans (ed), ''George Bernard Shaw: the Critical Heritage'', Routledge, 2013, p.346.] Homer E. Woodbridge was repelled by the idea that "useless" people should be identified and eliminated: Shaw's biographer
Michael Holroyd
Sir Michael de Courcy Fraser Holroyd (born 27 August 1935) is an English biographer.
Early life and education
Holroyd was born in London, the son of Basil de Courcy Fraser Holroyd (a descendant of Sir George Sowley Holroyd, Justice of the King' ...
notes that when the play was revived in the 1990s many critics expressed distaste, with Charles Spencer in ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
'' claiming to be "nauseated" after reading the preface. Benedict Nightingale in ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' said that it communicated "intellectual poison and death" and Michael Coveney in ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...
'' stated "No wonder the play went down well in Nazi Germany". Holroyd says that though the play was performed in Germany at the time, it was not a major success.
References
External links
''The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles'' at Project Gutenberg
{{DEFAULTSORT:Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles
1934 plays
Plays by George Bernard Shaw