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Major Barbara

Father Undershaft: you are mistaken: I a...

Overview

Gender
Male
Playing Age
Young Adult, Adult
Style
Dramatic
Act/Scene
Act 2
Time & Place
In the Undershaft family home, Cusins answers Andrew Undershaft by defending the Salvation Army as a joyful army of transformation.
Length
Short
Time Period
Contemporary
Show Type
Play
Age Guidance
Youth (Y)/General Audiences (G)

Context

Text

Father Undershaft: you are mistaken: I am a sincere Salvationist. You do not understand the Salvation Army. It is the army of joy, of love, of courage: it has banished the fear and remorse and despair of the old hellridden evangelical sects: it marches to fight the devil with trumpet and drum, with music and dancing, with banner and palm, as becomes a sally from heaven by its happy garrison. It picks the waster out of the public house and makes a man of him: it finds a worm wriggling in a back kitchen, and lo! a woman! Men and women of rank too, sons and daughters of the Highest. It takes the poor professor of Greek, the most artificial and self-suppressed of human creatures, from his meal of roots, and lets loose the rhapsodist in him; reveals the true worship of Dionysos to him; sends him down the public street drumming dithyrambs [he plays a thundering flourish on the drum].

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Emotional Beat Breakdown

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