2005. Two acts. 2M, 2F. Act One: EMMA DOLLY BARBARA TAGERTY Act Two: BARBARA DOLLY UNDERSHAFT HELENA Undermined is both a sequel and a response to Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara, taking up that play’s chief characters and themes. Attempting the Shavian trick of enlivening a play of ideas with preposterous comedy and acrobatic wit, it nonetheless critiques Shaw’s faith in human evolution and asks whether, 100 years later, we are any better off. The first act takes place in Perivale St. Andrews in 1937, at the height of the Spanish Civil War. Adolphus “Dolly” Cusins (a.k.a. the new Andrew Undershaft) wants to supply the Spanish Republic with badly needed arms, but the Allied embargo prevents him and, in protest, he’s threatening to shut the Undershaft arms works down entirely. His beloved Barbara, hoping to save the business, manipulates him into hiring Michael Tagerty, a young man who disguises his ideological opposition (and, as is gradually revealed, is the illegitimate son of a certain Irish-American ambassador and family scion). To complicate matters, Dolly and Barbara’s youngest daughter, Emma, has raised an internationalist brigade and is leaving for Spain with them unless someone can talk her out of it. Tagerty takes on the task as a way of getting in with his new employers, but finds himself falling for Emma’s force and charisma. Left alone, Barbara and Dolly face each other across the gulf of disappointed faith and compromised commitment that has opened between them. The second act takes place in an afterlife suggested by the Hell of Shaw’s Man and Superman. Here we find Dolly and Barbara miraculously restored to youth (played by Act I’s Tagerty and Emma). Dolly is content in his hard-earned idleness, but Barbara frets over the ultimate meaninglessness of their earthly lives. They are joined by her father, Andrew Undershaft (played by Act I’s Dolly), who enlists them in welcoming the most recently deceased heir to the Undershaft enterprise. This turns out to be Helena, a middle-aged American woman (played by Act I’s Barbara) who has just been killed by lightning on a golf course. How she came to be in possession of the Undershaft firm and what she did with it becomes the subject of hot debate, taking in 20th century warfare, early 21st century global politics, and Christian faith, a battleground on which Barbara must face Helena before the latter is “miraculously” resurrected to do more damage. EXCERPT PREFACE (yes, there’s a Preface!)