Writers often use the stage as a vehicle to comment on societal divisions and issues of the times. The plays of George Bernard Shaw were no different. Kathryn Eident talks with Shaw scholar and Massachusetts Maritime Academy professor Nelson Ritschel about the impact Shaw’s plays had on the public during the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution and World War I, and their meaning and context for us in today’s polarized times.
Ritschel's latest book is Bernard Shaw, Sean O'Casey, and the Dead James Connolly.