Phaedra Book

This little bagatelle of Shaw's premiered in 1918, shortly after the Bolshevik takeover in Russia. Except that Russia is never named in the play: It is Beotia, lately controlled by the Panjandrum of that country. We are on the front lines of World War One with two Beotian officers, the senior of whom is still in his heart loyal to the cause of the deposed Panjandrum. The news reaches him that Annajanska, the Grand Duchess and daughter of the Panjandrum, has become a revolutionary. She is brought before him and cleverly manipulates him into listening to her.

Much is made of the many cliques of the Revolution, and how it is so difficult to know to whom to submit one's reports from the Front.

It's worth reading this one-act play if for no other reason than to see how the Russian Revolution impacted on the English, and particularly one Irish wit.