Misalliance
Encyclopedia
Misalliance is a play written in 1909–1910 by George Bernard Shaw
.
Misalliance takes place entirely on a single Saturday afternoon in the conservatory of a large country house in Hindhead
, Surrey
in Edwardian era England
. It is a continuation of some of the ideas on marriage
that he expressed in 1908 in his play, Getting Married. It was also a continuation of some of his other ideas on Socialism
, physical fitness
, the Life Force
, and "The New Woman
": i.e. women intent on escaping Victorian standards of helplessness, passivity, stuffy propriety, and non-involvement in politics or general affairs.
Shaw subtitled his play A Debate in One Sitting, and in the program of its first presentation in 1910 inserting this program note: "The debate takes place at the house of John Tarleton of Hindhead, Surrey, on 31 May 1909. As the debate is a long one, the curtain will be lowered twice. The audience is requested to excuse these interruptions, which are made solely for its convenience."
examination of the mating
instinct
s of a varied group of people gathered at a wealthy man's country home on a summer weekend. Most of the romantic interest centers on the host's daughter, Hypatia Tarleton, a typical Shaw hero
ine who exemplifies his life-long theory that in courtship
, women are the relentless pursuers and men the apprehensively pursued.
Hypatia is the daughter of newly-wealthy John Tarleton who made his fortune in the unglamorous but lucrative underwear business. She is fed up with the stuffy conventions that surround her and with the hyperactive talk of the men in her life. Hypatia is engaged to Bentley Summerhays, an intellectually bright but physically and emotionally underdeveloped aristocrat
.
Hypatia is restless with her engagement as the play starts, even as it is revealed she has also had a proposal of engagement from her betrothed's father, Lord Summerhays. She has no desire to be a nurse to the elderly and is in no hurry to be made a widow
. She longs for some adventure to drop out of the sky, and it does.
An aircraft
crashes through the roof of the conservatory to close the end of the first act
.
At the beginning of Act II, it is revealed that the aircraft brings two unexpected guests. The pilot, Joey Percival, is a handsome young man who immediately arouses Hypatia's hunting instinct. The passenger, Lina Szczepanowska, is a female dare-devil of a circus
acrobat
whose vitality and directness inflame all the other men at the house-party.
An additional uninvited guest arrives in the form of Gunner. He is a cashier
who is very unhappy with his lot in life. He blames the wealthy class in particular for the plight of the ordinary worker, and he blames John Tarleton in particular for a romantic dalliance that he once had with Gunner's mother. Gunner arrives with intent to kill Tarleton but hides inside a piece of furniture. From this position, he becomes wise to Hypatia's pursuit of Percival. His character comes to introduce the themes of socialism to the play, as well as serving to question the conventional views on marriage and social order.
All together there are eight marriage proposals
offered for consideration in the course of one summer afternoon. The question of whether any one of these combinations of marriage might be an auspicious alliance, or a misalliance, prompts one of the prospective husbands to utter the famous Shavian speculation:
Part of Shaw's premise is in the irony that men spend so much energy courting a woman who will be obedient and subservient to them, when what they really desire is a strong woman who will be their equal. Shaw's idea of such an "ideal woman", one present throughout his works, is embodied in this case by the character of Lina Szczhepanowska. She is a death-defying Polish acrobat who accompanies Percival on his flight and subsequently becomes the object of affection for Summerhays, Tarleton, Bentley and Johnny. The affirmation of her role as Shaw's archetypical ideal woman is her speech (the longest by far in the work) in which she rejects Johnny's offer of marriage in favor of retaining her independence...financially, intellectually and physically. She takes Bentley, who finds a shaky new courage, up into the air with her at the conclusion of the play.
Anyone for tennis?
is thought to have originated from George Bernard Shaw
's Misalliance in which Johnny Tarleton asks "Anybody on for a game of tennis?" This phrase is often used to typify a particular genre of drawing room comedy and the upper class nature and activities of the characters portrayed within these.
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
.
Misalliance takes place entirely on a single Saturday afternoon in the conservatory of a large country house in Hindhead
Hindhead
Hindhead is a village in Surrey, England, about 11 miles south-west of Guildford. Neighbouring settlements include Haslemere, Grayshott and Beacon Hill. Hindhead is the highest village in Surrey...
, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
in Edwardian era England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It is a continuation of some of the ideas on marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
that he expressed in 1908 in his play, Getting Married. It was also a continuation of some of his other ideas on Socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, physical fitness
Physical fitness
Physical fitness comprises two related concepts: general fitness , and specific fitness...
, the Life Force
Life force
Life force is a concept of spiritual energy.Life force may also refer to:* Life Force , the American version of the arcade game Salamander* Lifeforce , a 1985 science fiction-horror film...
, and "The New Woman
New Woman
The New Woman was a feminist ideal that emerged in the late 19th century. The New Woman pushed the limits set by male-dominated society, especially as modeled in the plays of Norwegian Henrik Ibsen . "The New Woman sprang fully armed from Ibsen's brain," according to a joke by Max Beerbohm...
": i.e. women intent on escaping Victorian standards of helplessness, passivity, stuffy propriety, and non-involvement in politics or general affairs.
Shaw subtitled his play A Debate in One Sitting, and in the program of its first presentation in 1910 inserting this program note: "The debate takes place at the house of John Tarleton of Hindhead, Surrey, on 31 May 1909. As the debate is a long one, the curtain will be lowered twice. The audience is requested to excuse these interruptions, which are made solely for its convenience."
Plot
Misalliance is an ironicIrony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...
examination of the mating
Mating
In biology, mating is the pairing of opposite-sex or hermaphroditic organisms for copulation. In social animals, it also includes the raising of their offspring. Copulation is the union of the sex organs of two sexually reproducing animals for insemination and subsequent internal fertilization...
instinct
Instinct
Instinct or innate behavior is the inherent inclination of a living organism toward a particular behavior.The simplest example of an instinctive behavior is a fixed action pattern, in which a very short to medium length sequence of actions, without variation, are carried out in response to a...
s of a varied group of people gathered at a wealthy man's country home on a summer weekend. Most of the romantic interest centers on the host's daughter, Hypatia Tarleton, a typical Shaw hero
Hero
A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...
ine who exemplifies his life-long theory that in courtship
Courtship
Courtship is the period in a couple's relationship which precedes their engagement and marriage, or establishment of an agreed relationship of a more enduring kind. In courtship, a couple get to know each other and decide if there will be an engagement or other such agreement...
, women are the relentless pursuers and men the apprehensively pursued.
Hypatia is the daughter of newly-wealthy John Tarleton who made his fortune in the unglamorous but lucrative underwear business. She is fed up with the stuffy conventions that surround her and with the hyperactive talk of the men in her life. Hypatia is engaged to Bentley Summerhays, an intellectually bright but physically and emotionally underdeveloped aristocrat
Aristocracy (class)
The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...
.
Hypatia is restless with her engagement as the play starts, even as it is revealed she has also had a proposal of engagement from her betrothed's father, Lord Summerhays. She has no desire to be a nurse to the elderly and is in no hurry to be made a widow
Widow
A widow is a woman whose spouse has died, while a widower is a man whose spouse has died. The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed widowhood or occasionally viduity. The adjective form is widowed...
. She longs for some adventure to drop out of the sky, and it does.
An aircraft
Fixed-wing aircraft
A fixed-wing aircraft is an aircraft capable of flight using wings that generate lift due to the vehicle's forward airspeed. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft in which wings rotate about a fixed mast and ornithopters in which lift is generated by flapping wings.A powered...
crashes through the roof of the conservatory to close the end of the first act
Act (theater)
An act is a division or unit of a drama. The number of acts in a production can range from one to five or more, depending on how a writer structures the outline of the story...
.
At the beginning of Act II, it is revealed that the aircraft brings two unexpected guests. The pilot, Joey Percival, is a handsome young man who immediately arouses Hypatia's hunting instinct. The passenger, Lina Szczepanowska, is a female dare-devil of a circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
acrobat
Acrobatics
Acrobatics is the performance of extraordinary feats of balance, agility and motor coordination. It can be found in many of the performing arts, as well as many sports...
whose vitality and directness inflame all the other men at the house-party.
An additional uninvited guest arrives in the form of Gunner. He is a cashier
Cashier
Cashier is an occupation focused on the handling of cash money.- Retail :In a shop, a cashier is a person who scans the goods through a machine called a cash register that the consumer wishes to purchase at the retail store. After all of the goods have been scanned, the cashier then collects...
who is very unhappy with his lot in life. He blames the wealthy class in particular for the plight of the ordinary worker, and he blames John Tarleton in particular for a romantic dalliance that he once had with Gunner's mother. Gunner arrives with intent to kill Tarleton but hides inside a piece of furniture. From this position, he becomes wise to Hypatia's pursuit of Percival. His character comes to introduce the themes of socialism to the play, as well as serving to question the conventional views on marriage and social order.
All together there are eight marriage proposals
Proposal of marriage
A marriage proposal is an event where one person in a relationship asks for the other's hand in marriage. If accepted, it marks the initiation of engagement. It often has a ritual quality, sometimes involving the presentation of an engagement ring and a formalized asking of a question such as "Will...
offered for consideration in the course of one summer afternoon. The question of whether any one of these combinations of marriage might be an auspicious alliance, or a misalliance, prompts one of the prospective husbands to utter the famous Shavian speculation:
- "If marriages were made by putting all the men's names into one sack and the women's names into another, and having them taken out by a blind-folded child like lottery numbers, there would be just as high a percentage of happy marriages as we have now."
Part of Shaw's premise is in the irony that men spend so much energy courting a woman who will be obedient and subservient to them, when what they really desire is a strong woman who will be their equal. Shaw's idea of such an "ideal woman", one present throughout his works, is embodied in this case by the character of Lina Szczhepanowska. She is a death-defying Polish acrobat who accompanies Percival on his flight and subsequently becomes the object of affection for Summerhays, Tarleton, Bentley and Johnny. The affirmation of her role as Shaw's archetypical ideal woman is her speech (the longest by far in the work) in which she rejects Johnny's offer of marriage in favor of retaining her independence...financially, intellectually and physically. She takes Bentley, who finds a shaky new courage, up into the air with her at the conclusion of the play.
Famous quote
The phrasePhrase
In everyday speech, a phrase may refer to any group of words. In linguistics, a phrase is a group of words which form a constituent and so function as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence. A phrase is lower on the grammatical hierarchy than a clause....
Anyone for tennis?
Anyone for tennis?
The phrase "Anyone for tennis?" is thought to have originated from George Bernard Shaw's Misalliance in which Johnny Tarleton asks "Anybody on for a game of tennis?" This phrase is often used to typify a particular genre of drawing room comedy and the upper class nature and activities of the...
is thought to have originated from George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's Misalliance in which Johnny Tarleton asks "Anybody on for a game of tennis?" This phrase is often used to typify a particular genre of drawing room comedy and the upper class nature and activities of the characters portrayed within these.
Current, recent, or upcoming performances
- The American Player's Theatre
- San Diego's Old Globe Theatre
- University of Delaware's Professional Theatre Training Program
- The Publick Theatre of Boston
- New York Classical Theatre
- Austin Playhouse
- University of Illinois Department of Theatre (Krannert Center)