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The Art of War: Music in Shaw's Plays

by others but on the role of music, which is particularly emphasized in those of Shaw's plays that deal with war.1 Indeed, in some it is so central that they could be classified as musical drama. Where it is used in standard theatrical performances, musical references in the dialogue, songs sung by the characters, or musical pieces played by them and for spoken drama, Shaw's war plays contain a surprising number of such musical injections music traditionally fills a number of functions: it can be used to define personality or as commentary on a character, as plot development, and to provide emotional context or even as a form of dramatic structure. And Shaw uses music in all these ways. However, in addition, to shaping audience response, the music in Shaw's war plays becomes an ordering principle that offsets the carnage and chaos of modern warfare. Shaw only deals with war obliquely in his drama, yet the theme is anything but peripheral. In Saint Joan, for instance, war is a continual backdrop throughout the action, even though the nearest Shaw gets to depicting any actual fighting is when Joan and her followers run offstage to save the town of Orleans, yelling battle cries of "God and Saint Dennis!" and "The Maid! God and the Maid!"2 Yet this victory is ultimately what gets Joan accused of witchcraft, and the war is what motivates her burning. In the same way, Major Barbara deals with armament manufacture and the politics of arms sales, but its main focus is on class warfare rather than conventional militarism; and while Heartbreak House, like Chekhov, presents a critique of social indolence and aimlessness, it is also this malaise that leads to war, and Undershaft's high explosives mark the opening of hostilities in the play. Similarly in Arms and the Man, the war is over before the play begins, leaving the characters to deal with the aftermath: on a practical level in demobilizing armies but more centrally in the way war