Heartbreak House

Heartbreak House, play in three acts by George Bernard Shaw, published in 1919 and produced in 1920. The play’s subtitle, “A Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes,” acknowledges its resemblance to Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. The action takes place in the decidedly bohemian household of the elderly Captain Shotover, a dabbler in mysticism. The time, to judge from the zeppelin attack that provides the climax, is World War I, although no direct reference is made to the conflict. The characters—including Shotover’s daughters, Hesione and Lady Utterword, Hesione’s husband, Hector, and sundry others—play out their petty deceptions and grand philosophies oblivious of the momentous changes approaching. This combination of eccentrics gives rise to heated discussions of social theory, sexual conflict, and other typically Shavian subjects.