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Set in a near-future England, this political comedy pits King Magnus against his own cabinet in a struggle over who truly governs. Prime Minister Proteus and his ministers want the monarch reduced to a rubber stamp, but Magnus, urbane and quietly formidable, refuses to surrender the one power he has left. Shaw called the piece an extravaganza, and he uses it to prod at the machinery of democracy, arguing that elected governments can be quite as beholden to money and vanity as any court. A comic interlude with the king’s mistress lightens the debate without softening its edge. First staged in 1929, it remains one of his most provocative late plays. A free PDF and EPUB edition is available here.
About the Author
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was an Irish playwright, critic, and socialist polemicist who became the leading English-language dramatist of his era. A co-founder of the Fabian Society, he used comedy to attack social hypocrisy and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.
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