Using the framing tale somewhat as Shakespeare did in "The Taming of the Shrew", Shaw takes a look at more honest male-female connections. So, this is a check up on the earlier Shakesperian effort. ( )

I had never heard of this satire by Shaw before. I did read the preface, which I normally skip or read afterwards, and am glad I did so as certain aspects of the play were much funnier knowing Shaw had published this play anonymously.

This play features a "play within the play". The 'inner' play is a spoof on the comedy-of-manners social satire such as Oscar Wilde wrote; it is about 2 middle-class families each of which have parents striving to maintain respectability and/or morality after suddenly discovering their child has been in jail after shenanigans on Boat Race Night. The 'outer' play is a satire on playwrights (including Shaw himself) and drama critics.

I was amused by both the 'inner' and 'outer' plays but some aspects of the humor in the 'outer' play were clearly aimed at contemporary critics of whom I have no information so my guess is it was funnier at the time it was first produced (1911).

I knocked off ½ star due to the poor editing on this Kindle edition -- almost all of the apostrophes were missing (for example: hes instead of he's), which was quite annoying. Also for some reason, certain vowels were left out of contractions (havnt instead of haven't; arnt instead of aren't). I read this in the omnibus "The Plays of Shaw (26 Plays)". ( )