Saturday, September 04, 2010

The Doctor's Dilemna

Enjoyed the play (newly knighted doctor falls in love with 20-years-younger wife of a sick artist who is a scoundrel - is it best the husband die?).  The director's notes in the program was some frightful twaddle of a paean to socialized medicine.  To be fair, Shaw himself was an unapologetic commie.  He had the intellectual honesty to admit that for his ideal to work, it was understandable and necessary to have people shot when they were shirking their duty, but didn't seem to come to grips with the downside of that concession - apparently the people that would be doing the shooting were all fair, reasonable and altruistic.  Although Shaw mentioned the concept in the play, this was a tangential mention - the play was really about the value of life and the decisions we have to make.  The saving grace of the program notes were luscious photographs, including many of great artists killed by tuberculosis.

Next play, after dinner, is John Bull's Other Island.