Editing George Bernard Shaw (section)

===Stage success: 1900–1914===
[[File:Caesar-and-Cleopatra-1906.jpg|thumb|alt=Stage photograph showing actor as Julius Caesar and actress as Cleopatra in Egyptian setting|Gertrude Elliott and [[Johnston Forbes-Robertson]] in ''[[Caesar and Cleopatra (play)|Caesar and Cleopatra]]'', New York, 1906]]
During the first decade of the twentieth century, Shaw secured a firm reputation as a playwright. In 1904 [[John Eugene Vedrenne|J. E. Vedrenne]] and [[Harley Granville-Barker]] established a company at the [[Royal Court Theatre]] in [[Sloane Square]], [[Chelsea, London|Chelsea]] to present modern drama. Over the next five years they staged fourteen of Shaw's plays.{{sfn|''The Observer'', 8 March 1908|p=8}}{{refn|At the Royal Court and then at the [[Savoy Theatre|Savoy]], the Shaw plays presented by the partnership between 1905 and 1908 were ''[[You Never Can Tell (play)|You Never Can Tell]]'' (177 performances), ''[[Man and Superman]]'' (176), ''[[John Bull's Other Island]]'' (121), ''[[Captain Brassbound's Conversion]]'' (89), ''[[Arms and the Man]]'' (77), ''[[Major Barbara]]'' (52), ''[[The Doctor's Dilemma (play)|The Doctor's Dilemma]]'' (50), ''[[The Devil's Disciple (play)|The Devil's Disciple]]'' (42), ''[[Candida (play)|Candida]]'' (31), ''[[Caesar and Cleopatra (play)|Caesar and Cleopatra]]'' (28), ''[[How He Lied to Her Husband]]'' (9), ''[[The Philanderer]]'' (8), ''[[Don Juan in Hell]]'' (8) and ''[[The Man of Destiny]]'' (8).{{sfn|''The Observer'', 8 March 1908|p=8}}|group=n}} The first, ''[[John Bull's Other Island]]'', a comedy about an Englishman in Ireland, attracted leading politicians and was seen by [[Edward VII]], who laughed so much that he broke his chair.{{sfn|Holroyd|1997|p=311}} The play was withheld from Dublin's [[Abbey Theatre]], for fear of the affront it might provoke,{{sfn|Weintraub|2013}} although it was shown at the city's Royal Theatre in November 1907.{{sfn|Merriman|2010|pp=219–20}} Shaw later wrote that [[William Butler Yeats]], who had requested the play, "got rather more than he bargained for{{space}}... It was uncongenial to the whole spirit of the neo-Gaelic movement, which is bent on creating a new Ireland after its own ideal, whereas my play is a very uncompromising presentment of the real old Ireland."{{sfn|Broad and Broad 1929|p=53}}{{refn|Shaw often mocked the pretensions of the [[Gaelic League]] to represent modern-day Ireland—the League had, he said, been "invented in [[Bedford Park, London]]."{{sfn|Shaw|1998|p=64}} In a 1950 study of the [[Abbey Theatre]], Peter Kavanagh wrote: "Yeats and [[J. M. Synge|Synge]] did not feel that Shaw belonged to the real Irish tradition. His plays would thus have no place in the Irish theatre movement". Kavanagh added, "an important part of Shaw's plays was political argument, and Yeats detested this quality in dramatic writing."{{sfn|Kavanagh|1950| p= 55}}|group=n}} Nonetheless, Shaw and Yeats were close friends; Yeats and [[Augusta, Lady Gregory|Lady Gregory]] tried unsuccessfully to persuade Shaw to take up the vacant co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre after [[J. M. Synge]]'s death in 1909.{{sfn|Gahan|2010|pp=10–11}} Shaw admired other figures in the [[Irish Literary Revival]], including [[George William Russell|George Russell]]{{sfn|Gahan|2010|p=8}} and [[James Joyce]],{{sfn|Gahan|2010|p=14}} and was a close friend of [[Seán O'Casey]], who was inspired to become a playwright after reading ''John Bull's Other Island''.{{sfn|Gahan|2010|p=1}}

''[[Man and Superman]]'', completed in 1902, was a success both at the Royal Court in 1905 and in [[Robert Loraine]]'s New York production in the same year. Among the other Shaw works presented by Vedrenne and Granville-Barker were ''[[Major Barbara]]'' (1905), depicting the contrasting morality of arms manufacturers and the [[Salvation Army]];{{sfn|''The Observer'', 3 December 1905|p=5}} ''[[The Doctor's Dilemma (play)|The Doctor's Dilemma]]'' (1906), a mostly serious piece about professional ethics;{{sfn|''The Manchester Guardian'', 21 November 1906|p=7}} and ''[[Caesar and Cleopatra (play)|Caesar and Cleopatra]]'', Shaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's ''[[Antony and Cleopatra]]'', seen in New York in 1906 and in London the following year.{{sfn|Holroyd|1997|p=217}}

Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his biographer [[Stanley Weintraub]] as "discussion drama" and "serious [[farce]]".{{sfn|Weintraub|2013}} These plays included ''[[Getting Married]]'' (premiered 1908), ''[[The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet]]'' (1909), ''[[Misalliance (play)|Misalliance]]'' (1910), and ''[[Fanny's First Play]]'' (1911). ''Blanco Posnet'' was banned on religious grounds by the [[Lord Chamberlain#Theatre censorship|Lord Chamberlain]] (the official theatre censor in England), and was produced instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre to capacity.{{sfn|Laurence|1955|p=8}} ''Fanny's First Play'', a comedy about [[suffragette]]s, had the longest initial run of any Shaw play—622 performances.{{sfn|Gaye|1967|p=1531}}

''[[Androcles and the Lion (play)|Androcles and the Lion]]'' (1912), a less heretical study of true and false religious attitudes than ''Blanco Posnet'', ran for eight weeks in September and October 1913.{{sfn|Wearing|1982|p=379}} It was followed by one of Shaw's most successful plays, ''[[Pygmalion (play)|Pygmalion]]'', written in 1912 and staged in Vienna the following year, and in Berlin shortly afterwards.{{sfn|Holroyd|1997|p=440}} Shaw commented, "It is the custom of the English press when a play of mine is produced, to inform the world that it is not a play—that it is dull, blasphemous, unpopular, and financially unsuccessful.&nbsp;... Hence arose an urgent demand on the part of the managers of Vienna and Berlin that I should have my plays performed by them first."{{sfn|''The New York Times'', 23 November 1913|p=X6}} The British production opened in April 1914, starring [[Herbert Beerbohm Tree|Sir Herbert Tree]] and [[Mrs Patrick Campbell]] as, respectively, a professor of phonetics and a [[cockney]] flower-girl. There had earlier been a romantic liaison between Shaw and Campbell that caused Charlotte Shaw considerable concern, but by the time of the London premiere it had ended.{{sfn|Holroyd|1997|pp=426–430}} The play attracted capacity audiences until July, when Tree insisted on going on holiday, and the production closed. His co-star then toured with the piece in the US.{{sfn|Holroyd|1997|pp= 443–444}}{{sfn|''The New York Times'', 10 October 1914}}{{refn|In Tree's absence from the American production, his role, Professor Higgins, was successfully taken by [[Philip Merivale]], who had played Colonel Pickering in London.{{sfn|''The New York Times'', 13 October 1914}} Campbell continued to romanticise the piece, contrary to Shaw's wishes.{{sfn|Holroyd|1997|pp=443–444}}|group=n}}