CANDIDA. George Bernard Shaw's play 'Candida' belongs to that early group of the author's plays that followed hard upon the close of his novel-writing period. Written in 1894 for Richard Mansfield, who had that year produced 'Arms and the Man,' it had its first production on any stage in 1897 when the In dependent Theatre Company offered it in Aber deen and on tour, with Janet Achurch in the title role and Charles Charrington in the part of the Rev. James Mayor Morell. It was printed the following year as the second play in the volume of "pleasant" plays in the 'Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant' series. The theme of love, marriage and the artist had been treated by Shaw in his novel, 'Love Among the Artists.' It is returned to as a minor theme in 'The Doctor's Dilemma.' In (Candida) it is handled in a spirit of combined disillusion and reverence that raises the play to first rank as a work of art and as a psychological document. Into the contented household of the Rev. James Mayor Morell and his wife, Candida, comes the poet, Eugene Marchbanks. The action that fol lows is not so much a development of the tri angle theme, as the testing of the marriage com pact of Morell and Candida before the acute perceptions of the poet. Marchbanks' temporary error in thinking he is in love with Can dida but raises her to a greater clarity of insight; happily too it gives the masterful Mor ell a quarter of an hour of keen self-distrust. But there is no real struggle between Morell and Marchbanks. Each man has what he most desires and most needs. In Marchbanks, who all through is too much "aware to be really in love, the author is revealing the lonely soul of the poet, as in Candida and Morell he is un covering The secret places in the marriage bond.
"One of the noblest, if not the noblest, of modern plays," Chesterton calls 'Candida.' This nobility appertains not only to the theme, but as well to the manner in which the play is written. In its freedom from "gallant, wicked and poetic attitudes," in its lofty idealism as well as in its searching of human weaknesses it is a work of genius. Unlike the greater number of Shaw's plays 'Candida' is a true theatre piece. Against all the dramatic anarchy of his discursive plays it is Shaw's indubitable war rant as a great dramatist. The stage history of the play has been distinguished. Finally produced by Mansfield in 1903, it was the same year given notable productions in Dresden and by Arnold Daly in New York. The following year it was a part of the Court Theatre rep ertory of the Vedrenne Barker management in London. It was given in French in Brussels in 1907 and in Paris in 1908. In recent years it has occupied a leading place in the repertories of anew* theatres. Consult Henderson, Archi bald, 'George Bernard Shaw: his Life and Works> (London 1911) ; Chesterton, G. K., 'George Bernard Shaw' (ib. 1909) ; Burton, Richard, 'George Bernard Shaw : the Man and the Mask' (New York 1916) ; Hamon, Au gustin, 'Le Moliere du XX° gide: Bernard Shaw' (Paris 1913) ; 'The Technique of Bernard Shaw's Plays,' translated by F. Maurice (London 1912).