The Devil's Disciple

Devil's Disciple, The (1897). George Bernard Shaw's only important work set in America and dealing with events during the Revolutionary War, the play was his second to receive a professional mounting, when Mansfield offered it with himself as Dick Dudgeon. William Winter called his performance “picturesque, sympathetic, and effective.” The production ran for seven weeks, a run far exceeded when the Theatre Guild revived it in 1923. With Basil Sydney as Dick and Roland Young in the brilliant cameo part of General Burgoyne, the production was hailed by the Times as “one of the few great comedy hits of the season” and ran six months. A superb 1950 revival starred Maurice Evans as Dick but was stolen by Dennis King as the General. Brooks Atkinson called his performance “humorously insufferable,” adding, “The sardonicism rolls off his lips with wonderful grace and condescension.” The comedy was revived in 1988 at the Circle in the Square.

Devil's Disciple, The (1897), one of the Three Plays for Puritans by George Bernard Shaw, set in Puritan New Hampshire during the American War of Independence. Richard Dudgeon rebels against the Puritanism of his mother and his society and declares himself ‘the Devil's Disciple’.