Three Plays for Puritans is a collection of plays by George Bernard Shaw published in January 1901.
It consists of The Devil's Disciple (1897), Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1900), with a long preface by Shaw in three parts in which he expounds many of his thoughts on drama. In the preface, Shaw also introduced the term "bardolatry," to describe excessive admiration for Shakespeare.
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Caesar and Cleopatra (Shavian: ยท๐๐ฐ๐๐ฉ๐ฎ ๐จ๐ฏ๐ ยท๐๐ค๐ฐ๐ฉ๐ซ๐๐จ๐๐ฎ๐ฉ) is a play written in 1898 by George Bernard Shaw that depicts a fictionalised account of the relationship between Julius Caesar and Cleopatra. It was first published with Captain Brassbound's Conversion and The Devil's Disciple in Shaw's 1901 collection Three Plays for Puritans. Shaw based his plot on Theodor Mommsen's The History of Rome, which presents an admiring depiction of Caesar as a strong leader and great man, contrasting his piece with Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, which was based on histories by Plutarch and Holinshed. Shaw focused on the background of Roman interference in the affairs of Alexandria, which he saw as akin to the British imperialism of his day. He also portrayed Cleopatra as sixteen years old to downplay the sexual relationship between the title characters and focus on the political story.
The play was first performed in a single staged reading at Newcastle upon Tyne in March 1899, to secure the copyright, starring Mrs Patrick Campbell and Nutcombe Gould, though Shaw said that he had written the role of Caesar with Johnston Forbes-Robertson in mind. Campbell resisted Shaw's concept of her character and portrayed it more maturely. It was not staged again until March 1906, when it was played unsuccessfully in Berlin in a German translation, with cuts. Shaw's text was fully given a full staging in New York later in 1906 and in London in 1907, both starring Gertrude Elliott and Forbes-Robertson.
Bardolatry is excessive admiration of William Shakespeare. Shakespeare has been known as "the Bard" since the eighteenth century. One who idolizes Shakespeare is known as a bardolator.The term bardolatry, derived from Shakespeare's sobriquet "the Bard of Avon" and the Greek word latria "worship" (as in idolatry, worship of idols), was coined by George Bernard Shaw in the preface to his collection Three Plays for Puritans published in 1901. Shaw professed to dislike Shakespeare as a thinker and philosopher because Shaw believed that Shakespeare did not engage with social problems as Shaw did in his own plays. Shaw argued that the new naturalism of Henrik Ibsen's plays had made Shakespeare obsolete.
Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1900) is a play by G. Bernard Shaw. It was published in Shaw's 1901 collection Three Plays for Puritans (with Caesar and Cleopatra, and The Devil's Disciple). The first American production of the play starred Ellen Terry in 1907. The play explores the relationship between the law, justice, revenge and forgiveness.
The Devil's Disciple is an 1897 play written by Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw. The play is Shaw's eighth, and after Richard Mansfield's original 1897 American production it was his first financial success, which helped to affirm his career as a playwright. It was published in Shaw's 1901 collection Three Plays for Puritans together with Captain Brassbound's Conversion and Caesar and Cleopatra. Set in Colonial America during the Revolutionary era, the play tells the story of Richard Dudgeon, a local outcast and self-proclaimed "Devil's disciple". In a twist characteristic of Shaw's love of paradox, Dudgeon sacrifices himself in a Christ-like gesture despite his professed infernal allegiance.