Major Barbara

George Bernard Shaw, the playwright of “Major Barbara,” was a drama critic before he started… George Bernard Shaw, the playwright of “Major Barbara,” was a drama critic before he started writing his own plays. Therefore, the guy must have known what he was doing, because “Major Barbara” is so elegant a play that only an expert who knew the form intimately could have crafted it.

And, fortunately for Shaw’s memory, director Matt O’Brien’s treatment of “Major Barbara” has an equal elegance.

The title character Barbara, played by Derdriu Ring, is the daughter of Andrew Undershaft (the double-entendres get started early), a surprisingly magnanimous munitions manufacturer. Barbara gets her title from being a major in the Salvation Army, where she works with her fiance, Adolphous “Dolly” Cusins. When the Salvation Army runs low on money, Undershaft offers to bail the shelter out. When the munitions factory needs a new CEO, Undershaft offers an even more shocking solution.

Bingo O’Malley leads the cast as the eldest Undershaft, the mentally spry but nevertheless aging munitions scion. O’Malley’s vigorous delivery is befitting of a man whose life’s greater meaning boils down to “I’m a millionaire. That’s my religion.” Lady Britomart, the testy matriarch of the Undershaft family, is ably played by Kate Young, who turns in a hilarious, ball-breaking performance steamrolling over her simpering son Stephen, played by the always-reliable Matthew Gaydos.

Shaw was a playwright who thought that plays should mean something, effect social change or comment on social problems. He was obviously the life of every social event. But every character says something meaningful. Even the minor or buffoonish characters do and say profound things, like Charley, the blathering upper-class twit who occasionally stuns himself and the room at large by making a cogent observation beyond “I say, old chap!”

But because this is ostensibly a comedy, everything works out in the end. What makes “Major Barbara” so enjoyable is that, though PICT’s audience is slightly, um, grayer than the typical Pitt News reader, there are quips, double-entendres and loquacious speeches about how socialism is the answer and evangelism is trickery. The opening scene even reminds the viewer of “The Royal Tenenbaums.”