A "Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes" by George Bernard Shaw.
In his 1919 preface Shaw described Heartbreak House as "cultured, leisured Europe before the War". Begun in 1916 the play is a witty satire on the Bohemian classes, the horse-riding classes, and the pragmatic politicians and capitalists who hover between the two. Amid the farce they are not indifferent to the impending danger but seem unable to help themselves, "like moths round a candle". (R)