"Caesar and Cleopatra":

- the 20th century literature is characterized by a rebirth of dramatic interest both in Great
Britain and in the United States. In England the influence of Ibsen made itself strongly
felt in the problem plays of G.B. Shaw and in the realism of John Galsworthy and
Somerset Maugham. T.S. Eliot revived and enriched the verse drama, John Osborne
expressed the rebellious attitude of the "Angry Young Men" in Look Back in Anger.
Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller gave America a serious drama,
with modern features, influenced by the European experiments.
- the modern "drama of ideas" is exemplified in the plays of Ibsen, Shaw, Galswworthy,
and many others. The problem plays represent in dramatic form a general social problem,
a philosofic idea, shown as it is confronted by or must be solved by the protagonist.
- Shaw's plays are conflicts of ideas and his characters prime reason for existence is to put
forward these ideas. His heroes were often created as mothpieces for the playwright's
ideas. They tend to make a lot of witty, intellectual speeches through which Shaw's ideas
are conveyed to the audience.
- the true subject of a debate drama being an idea, the events in the plot are less
important. Shaw said about his plots: "Shavian plots are as silly as Shakespearean plots
and, like Shakespeare's they are all stolen from other writers".
the innovatory technique is based on reversal: Shaw takes a familiar theatrical type or
situation and reverses it so that his audience is forced to reassess things radically. In
Caesar and Cleopatra Shaw reverses the traditional view on the two legendary characters.
His Caesar has no trace of heroism and grandeur. He loos like an old gentleman, a well-
educated member of the English middle-class, endowed with a sense of dry humour.
Cleopatra, the glamorous, ambitious and clever Queen of Egypt, appears in Shaw's play
as a rather common, timid young girl who has nothing from the majistic figure of the
legendary queen.
-in Shaw's plays paradox is the most important comical device.
Shaw's reinterpretation of history:
Shaw's historical plays deglamorize history, underlining the discrepancy between the
legend surrounding historical personalities and the reality that lies beneath the "myth".
The technique of reversal functions with great comic effect when applied to famous
historical characters like Caesar and Cleopatra. Caesar, far from being a heroic figure, is
seen by Cleopatra as an elderly gentleman, who cannot scare even a girl. What is even
funnier, he is told by a girl (for that is Cleopatra's image in Shaw's play) how to govern:
"You are very sentimental, Caesar; but you are clever; and if you do as I tell you, you will
soon learn to govern".
G.B. Shaw explained in his Notes to Caesar and Cleopatra that he intended "to produce
an impression of greatness by exhibiting Caesar as a man, not mortifying his nature by
doing his duty, but as simply doing what he naturally wants to do".