Inventing Shavian Dramaturgy: Origins of “Unpleasant” Dilemmas in George Bernard Shaw’s Widowers’ Houses

Authors : Banu Öğünç

Pages : 1297-1309

Doi:10.32709/akusosbil.1669362

View : 38 | Download : 98

Publication Date : 2025-12-22

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :Initiated as a collaboration between George Bernard Shaw and William Archer, Widower’s Houses was planned to be an example of ‘a well-made play’. Later, Shaw decided to complete this unfinished text to turn it into a play that would eventually present his socialist ideas influenced by Henrik Ibsen. Challenging the melodrama tradition of the Victorian stage, Shaw introduced realism under the influence of Ibsen and Karl Marx and provoked his audience regarding the unpleasant problems in his view. Eventually, Shaw’s first staged play Widower’s Houses turns into a preliminary example of his dramaturgy. The socialist ideas Shaw reflects dedicatedly throughout his career begin to appear with this play. Moreover, Shaw’s treatment of such themes like marriage, class, and money through characters can be considered as part of his legacy and consistent dramaturgy. Thus, the origins of the meaning of the adjective ‘Shavian’ can be traced in this first staged play of Shaw. Consequently, this study aims to revisit George Bernard Shaw’s first staged play Widower’s Houses with the aim of pursuing the origins of Shaw’s Shavian dramaturgy and to discuss the early impact of the unpleasant on the British stage.
Keywords : George Bernard Shaw, Widowers’ Houses, Henrik Ibsen, Shavian

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