CPL310
10/6/2004
Holz & Schlaff published a work in German under a pseudonym, a Scandinavian name, because Scandinavian works were popular in Germany then.
"The Doctor's Dilmma"
-- George Bernard Shaw
-- to be or not to be God; cure vs kill
-- must doctors serve first come first serve or those most in need or most deserving
-- Ridgeon is a doctor looking for a vaccine to prevent tuberculosis
-- he knows lots of other doctors each who has a different strategy for treating TB; Sir Patrick is the one who represents practicality
-- Blenkinsop is another doctor who treats the poor and doesn't earn much
-- Dubedat is an artist who has TB
-- Ridgeon has only a little bit of vaccine and must consider whether each patient is worth saving; he'd have to boot one of his existing patients to take on Debedat (R compares thihs to 10 men on a liferaft)
-- R invites D and his wife to dinner so he can evaluate them
-- D is reveals as a lying cheating man without scruples
-- Blenkinsop himself contracts TB so R takes him on as a client and fobs off D on another colleague, Bonington
-- D dies, Dr B recovers, and R asks D's wife to marry him; D's wife (Jennifer) has already remarried and thinks R rejected D just so he'd die so he could marry J; J is setting up an art show of D's works
-- [friend bet Shaw that he couldn't write a tragedy and this play is it]
-- [traditional place for a death scene in a 5-act play is act 4, and Shaw adhered to that]
-- George Bernard Shaw born in 1856 in Dublin, died in 1950 in Hertfordshaw
-- father was an alcoholic; when Shaw was 10, his father left
-- Shaw remained in Ireland but his mother and two sisters went to England
-- wrote over 50 plays (even into his 90s)