Genre and Charisma in Shaw’s Major Barbara

Abstract

Thirty-six years after the premiere of Major Barbara on the London stage, George Bernard Shaw and Gregory Pascal set about adapting the play for the screen. Banking on the success of Pygmalion, Pascal’s 1938 film adaptation of Shaw’s play’ Shaw invested a considerable sum of money in the venture and insisted on writing the screenplay himself. But the adaptation posed problems that Pygmalion did not, especially if the film were targeted for a mainstream audience. The modernist devices of the play, especially the inversion of multiple comic conventions and extended intellectual debate, were jettisoned in favor of establishing a consistent generic focus that depended on the charismatic screen presence of Wendy Hiller.