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    The Inca of Perusalem, Augustus Does His Bit, and Annajanska, the Bolsheik Empress
    The Inca of Perusalem, Augustus Does His Bit, and Annajanska, the Bolsheik Empress
    The Inca of Perusalem, Augustus Does His Bit, and Annajanska, the Bolsheik Empress
    Ebook78 pages1 hour

    The Inca of Perusalem, Augustus Does His Bit, and Annajanska, the Bolsheik Empress

    By George Bernard Shaw

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    George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is revered as one of the great British dramatists, credited not only with memorable works, but the revival of the then-suffering English theatre. Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, left mostly to his own devices after his mother ran off to London to pursue a musical career. He educated himself for the most part, and eventually worked for a real estate agent. This experience founded in him a concern for social injustices, seeing poverty and general unfairness afoot, and would go on to address this in many of his works. In 1876, Shaw joined his mother in London where he would finally attain literary success, and went on to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1925. He used the stage to deliver messages to his audiences in the hope of bettering society. Shaw's vision was not just to reconcile issues within his society, but to encourage mankind to strive for a sort of perfection close to divinity. He did not ask questions about the present, but envisioned an alternate reality altogether. Contained in this volume are three of Shaw's lesser known works: "The Inca of Perusalem", "Augustus Does His Bit", and "Annajanska, the Bolsheik Empress".
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2011
    ISBN9781596258006
    The Inca of Perusalem, Augustus Does His Bit, and Annajanska, the Bolsheik Empress
    Author

    George Bernard Shaw

    George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin in 1856 and moved to London in 1876. He initially wrote novels then went on to achieve fame through his career as a journalist, critic and public speaker. A committed and active socialist, he was one of the leaders of the Fabian Society. He was a prolific and much lauded playwright and was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. He died in 1950.

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      Book preview

      The Inca of Perusalem, Augustus Does His Bit, and Annajanska, the Bolsheik Empress - George Bernard Shaw

      THE INCA OF PERUSALEM,

      AUGUSTUS DOES HIS BIT,

      AND

      ANNAJANSKA, THE BOLSHEVIK EMPRESS

      BY GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

      A Digireads.com Book

      Digireads.com Publishing

      Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-4131-9

      Ebook ISBN 13: 978-1-59625-800-6

      This edition copyright © 2011

      Please visit www.digireads.com

      CONTENTS

      THE INCA OF PERUSALEM:

      PROLOGUE

      THE PLAY

      AUGUSTUS DOES HIS BIT

      ANNAJANSKA, THE BOLSHEVIK EMPRESS

      THE INCA OF PERUSALEM:

      AN ALMOST HISTORICAL COMEDIETTA

      I must remind the reader that this playlet was written when its principal character, far from being a fallen foe and virtually a prisoner in our victorious hands, was still the Caesar whose legions we were resisting with our hearts in our mouths. Many were so horribly afraid of him that they could not forgive me for not being afraid of him: I seemed to be trifling heartlessly with a deadly peril. I knew better; and I have represented Caesar as knowing better himself. But it was one of the quaintnesses of popular feeling during the war that anyone who breathed the slightest doubt of the absolute perfection of German organization, the Machiavellian depth of German diplomacy, the omniscience of German science, the equipment of every German with a complete philosophy of history, and the consequent hopelessness of overcoming so magnificently accomplished an enemy except by the sacrifice of every recreative activity to incessant and vehement war work, including a heartbreaking mass of fussing and cadging and bluffing that did nothing but waste our energies and tire our resolution, was called a pro-German.

      Now that this is all over, and the upshot of the fighting has shown that we could quite well have afforded to laugh at the doomed Inca, I am in another difficulty. I may be supposed to be hitting Caesar when he is down. That is why I preface the play with this reminder that when it was written he was not down. To make quite sure, I have gone through the proof sheets very carefully, and deleted everything that could possibly be mistaken for a foul blow. I have of course maintained the ancient privilege of comedy to chasten Caesar's foibles by laughing at them, whilst introducing enough obvious and outrageous fiction to relieve both myself and my model from the obligations and responsibilities of sober history and biography. But I should certainly put the play in the fire instead of publishing it if it contained a word against our defeated enemy that I would not have written in 1913.

      The Inca of Perusalem was performed for the first time in England by the Pioneer Players at the Criterion Theatre, London, on 16th December, 1917, with Gertrude Kingston as Ermyntrude, Helen Morris as the Princess, Nigel Playfair as the waiter, Alfred Drayton as the hotel manager, C. Wordley Hulse as the Archdeacon, and Randle Ayrton as the Inca.

      PROLOGUE

      The tableau curtains are closed. An English archdeacon comes through them in a condition of extreme irritation. He speaks through the curtains to someone behind them.

      THE ARCHDEACON. Once for all, Ermyntrude, I cannot afford to maintain you in your present extravagance. [He goes to a flight of steps leading to the stalls and sits down disconsolately on the top step. A fashionably dressed lady comes through the curtains and contemplates him with patient obstinacy. He continues, grumbling.] An English clergyman's daughter should be able to live quite respectably and comfortably on an allowance of £150 a year, wrung with great difficulty from the domestic budget.

      ERMYNTRUDE. You are not a common clergyman: you are an archdeacon.

      THE ARCHDEACON [angrily.] That does not affect my emoluments to the extent of enabling me to support a daughter whose extravagance would disgrace a royal personage. [Scrambling to his feet and scolding at her.] What do you mean by it, Miss?

      ERMYNTRUDE. Oh really, father! Miss! Is that the way to talk to a widow?

      THE ARCHDEACON. Is that the way to talk to a father? Your marriage was a most disastrous imprudence. It gave you habits that are absolutely beyond your means—I mean beyond my means: you have no means. Why did you not marry Matthews: the best curate I ever had?

      ERMYNTRUDE. I wanted to; and you wouldn't let me. You insisted on my marrying Roosenhonkers-Pipstein.

      THE ARCHDEACON. I had to do the best for you, my child. Roosenhonkers-Pipstein was a millionaire.

      ERMYNTRUDE. How did you know he was a millionaire?

      THE ARCHDEACON. He came from America. Of course he was a millionaire. Besides, he proved to my solicitors that he had fifteen million dollars when you married him.

      ERYNTRUDE. His solicitors proved to me that he had sixteen millions when he died. He was a millionaire to the last.

      THE ARCHDEACON. O Mammon, Mammon! I am punished now for bowing the knee to him. Is there nothing left of your settlement? Fifty thousand dollars a year it secured to you, as we all thought. Only half the securities could be called speculative. The other half were gilt-edged. What has become of it all?

      ERMYNTRUDE. The speculative ones were not paid up; and the gilt-edged ones just paid the calls on them until the whole show burst up.

      THE ARCHDEACON. Ermyntrude: what expressions!

      ERMYNTRUDE. Oh bother! If you had lost ten thousand a year what expressions would you use, do you think? The long and the short of it is that I can't live in the squalid way you are accustomed to.

      THE ARCHDEACON. Squalid!

      ERMYNTRUDE. I have formed habits of comfort.

      THE ARCHDEACON. Comfort!!

      ERMYNTRUDE. Well, elegance if you like. Luxury, if you insist. Call it what you please. A house that costs less than a hundred thousand dollars a year to run is intolerable to me.

      THE ARCHDEACON. Then, my dear, you had better become lady's maid to a princess until you can find another millionaire to marry you.

      ERMYNTRUDE. That's an idea. I will. [She vanishes through the curtains.]

      THE ARCHDEACON. What! Come back. Come back this instant. [The lights are lowered.] Oh,

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