Apostle of Life

By T.E. Kalem

MAJOR BARBARA by GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

The American Shakespeare Festival Theater at Stratford, Conn., is more renowned for the picnics on its lawns than the productions on its stage. Ironically, its Shakespeare productions are a persistent embarrassment, but its Shaw revivals are often delightful. The company's current presentation of Major Barbara is done with style, professionalism and infectious high spirits.

It helps that this is one of Shaw's finer plays. While Barbara Undershaft (Jane Alexander), who does the Christian God's goodly work among the poor, owns the play's title, it is her munitions tycoon of a father, Andrew (Lee Richardson), wielding the twin thunderbolts of "money and gunpowder," who is the capitalistic Zeus. Shaw himself had a Caesar complex. He was fascinated by absolute power and that explained his deplorable temporary enthusiasms for Hitler and Stalin. But his Undershaft is of another breed. This merchant of death is also an apostle of life.

His argument to Barbara is that he feeds, clothes and houses his workers so that they can find their souls, while she narcotizes the poor with a Salvation Army soup-kitchen dole that makes them compliant addicts of their own degradation. Somewhat overpowered in the debate, Alexander is also over matched in the role, lacking Richard son's explosive charm and easy com mand. Under Edwin Sherin's impeccable direction, a dozen character sketches in depth are expertly rendered. The British accents are flawless and the set is hermetically sealed in a world of timeless Edwardia.

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