The Apple Cart: A Political Extravaganza is a 1928 play by George Bernard Shaw. Though it offers some laughs, the play is primarily a reflection on a number of political philosophies and characters who frequently deliver lengthy speeches defending their views. It follows the fictional King Magnus as he outwits a petulant Prime Minister, Proteus, and his cabinet, who seek to strip the monarchy of its remaining political powers. As Shaw puts it succinctly in the Preface, it is "a comedy in which a King defeats an attempt by his popularly elected Prime Minister to deprive him of the right to influence public opinion through the press and the platform: in short, to reduce him to a cipher. The King's reply is that rather than be a cipher he will abandon his throne and take his obviously very rosy chance of becoming a popularly elected Prime Minister himself."

The play was completed in December 1928 and first performed at Warsaw (in Polish) the following June. Its English première was at the Malvern Festival in August 1928 and a special train had to be laid on for the theatre critics coming from London.

Shaw based King Magnus largely on himself and the enigmatic and pivotal character of Orinthia, the King's Mistress, on Mrs Patrick Campbell, who had created Eliza Dolittle in Pygmalion.[1]

Contents

Characters

Text

In performance

The Apple Cart at the Internet Broadway Database

Notes & References

  1. ^ Peter Hall Company 2009 Programme - Shaw's The Apple Cart by Robert Warren
This article on a play from the 1920s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
The plays of George Bernard Shaw
Passion Play · Un Petit Drame · Widowers' Houses · The Philanderer · Mrs. Warren's Profession · Arms and the Man · Candida · The Man of Destiny · You Never Can Tell · The Devil's Disciple · The Gadfly · Caesar and Cleopatra · Captain Brassbound's Conversion · The Admirable Bashville · Man and Superman · John Bull's Other Island · How He Lied to Her Husband · Major Barbara · Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction · The Doctor's Dilemma · The Interlude at the Playhouse · Getting Married · The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet · Press Cuttings · Fascinating Foundling · The Glimpse of Reality · Misalliance · The Dark Lady of the Sonnets · Fanny's First Play · Androcles and the Lion · Overruled · Beauty's Duty · Pygmalion · Great Catherine · The Music Cure · O'Flaherty V.C. · The Inca of Perusalem · Augustus Does His Bit · Macbeth Skit · Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress · Heartbreak House · Back to Methuselah · A Glimpse of the Domesticity of Franklin Barnabas · Jitta's Atonement · Saint Joan · The Apple Cart · Too True to Be Good · How These Doctors Love One Another! · Village Wooing · On the Rocks · The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles · The Six of Calais · The Millionairess · Arthur and the Acetone · Cymbeline Refinished · Geneva · In Good King Charles's Golden Days · The British Party System · Buoyant Billions · Farfetched Fables · Shakes versus Shav · Why She Would Not

Categories: 1929 plays | Plays by George Bernard Shaw

 

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