Major Barbara

At-a-glance

• Play: Major Barbara (George Bernard Shaw)
• Form: social satire / “discussion play” in 3 acts
• Setting: London
• Typical running time (with interval): 2h30–3h15
• Cast (as written, practical): around 14 principals (often listed as 9 male / 5 female), plus optional extras for shelter/factory atmosphere
• Best fit: groups who want big arguments, big roles, and a play that audiences argue about on the way home

Why do this play

• It gives you a lead role with a real arc (Barbara doesn’t “learn a lesson,” she collides with reality and changes shape).
• It’s a production where acting is the spectacle: power shifts happen in language, not special effects.
• You can stage it lean or make it feel populous with an ensemble—same script, different footprint.

The play in a nutshell

Barbara Undershaft is a committed Salvation Army major, working in a shelter where practical help and moral reform are intertwined: food, beds, hymns, and the hope that people can change. She’s also the daughter of Andrew Undershaft, a wealthy munitions manufacturer she barely knows. When her father suddenly re-enters the family’s life, he doesn’t come in quietly. He comes in like a challenge.

At first, the clash feels simple: Barbara represents conscience, faith, and service; Undershaft represents money, industry, and the brutal reality of power. But the play quickly makes it personal. Undershaft meets Barbara on her home ground and starts testing her beliefs with uncomfortable questions: what does “saving” mean when people are starving? What is moral purity worth if it can’t keep the lights on?

Then the pressure point hits. The Salvation Army shelter is struggling for funds, and Undershaft offers a large donation—money made from weapons. When the Army accepts it, Barbara is forced to confront the compromise in the most direct way possible: the institution she serves is willing to keep doing good work using money she considers morally contaminated.

From there, the story becomes a tug-of-war over Barbara herself. Undershaft invites Barbara (and others close to her) into his world—his factory, his workforce, his carefully controlled “model” version of social order—and argues that his system produces the security and dignity that charity can only patch together. Barbara has to decide what she’s willing to stand for, what she’s willing to reject, and whether “help” without power is just a performance.

What you’re staging is a plot that keeps tightening: a family reunion, a public moral crisis, and a final confrontation where the audience is left to ask not “who is right?” but “what does it cost to do good—and who pays?”

Production facts

• Cast/doubling:
  • As-written principals often sit around 14
  • Doubling is straightforward (servants/shelter/factory roles can overlap without confusing the plot)
• Set approach:
  • Three worlds: home / shelter / factory
  • Easiest build: one unit set that re-dresses (posh order → rough public space → “polished” industrial order)
• Costume level:
  • Can be period-forward, but also works with a controlled “timeless” palette (uniforms and class contrast do most of the storytelling)
• Props you can’t fake emotionally:
  • A clear “collection/donation” presence in Act II (money must feel physically real)
• Timing reality check:
  • The same play can be 2h30 or 3h15 depending on pace and how “lecture-y” you let it get

Staging challenges (and fixes)

• Challenge: “It’s talky.”
  Practical fix: rehearse speeches as tactics. Every long argument must win or lose something (status, control, allegiance). If the listener isn’t visibly changing, the scene is dying.
• Challenge: Act II needs a busy shelter without chaos.
  Practical fix: block the shelter like a machine with rules: where money goes, where food appears, where people watch from, who controls the room. Make “the room” a character.
• Challenge: Act III risks becoming a factory tour.
  Practical fix: treat it as a seduction. The factory world should feel orderly, tempting, and slightly uncanny—like a utopia with a price tag.
• Challenge: Bill Walker moments can turn sensational or unsafe.
  Practical fix: choreograph intimidation precisely, set boundaries early, and aim for consequence over spectacle.

Themes today

• “Clean” outcomes funded by “unclean” money: who owns the mission?
• Charity vs systems: relief now versus structural power later.
• Poverty as coercion: what choices are “free” when you’re desperate?
• Religion as infrastructure (not just belief): organization, discipline, distribution.

Discussion question: If a donation changes what you’re allowed to say, is it still a donation—or a contract?

Content notes + copyright

Content notes:

• Scenes involving intimidation/coercion and the pressure of poverty (stage with care).
• Strong ideological conflict around religion, morality, and the arms trade.

Copyright:

• In the United States, Major Barbara is widely treated as public domain.
• In countries where copyright lasts 70 years after the author’s death, Shaw’s works are now out of copyright (Shaw died in 1950).

Two common gotchas even when the play text is out of copyright:

• A modern translation, adaptation, or heavily edited version may still be protected.
• The typographical layout of a published edition can have its own protection in some places (separate from the underlying text).

Heads up on copyright: I’m not a legal professional, so this information is for general guidance only—not legal advice. Copyright can depend on where you are, and on which version of the text you use. If you have any doubts about permissions, it’s best to speak to a qualified legal professional before you proceed with a production.