Heartbreak House

A Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes (Penguin Plays & Screenplays)

Plot

Heartbreak House is Shaw's play about the war, even though the war is never mentioned and (until late in the play) never makes its presence felt. He sets the play, not in the world of plutocrats and government ministers (though representatives from these worlds wander into the house), but among the educated, cultured, leisure classes, what one idealistic character admiringly identifies as "very charming people, most advanced, unprejudiced, frank, humane, unconventional, democratic, free-thinking, and everything that is delightful to thoughtful people." The "Bohemians" who live in Heartbreak House aren't thinkers or artists; they're what the British call "amateurs," (literally "lovers"), people who pride themselves in knowing about, and being able to talk about, the latest idea and the latest work of art. They and their house guests flirt with one another and talk at prodigious length (as characters do in other Shaw plays). And they use all this talk to break one another's hearts--those among them, at least, who have hearts to break