Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction

Passion, Poison, and Petrifaction is a short play by Bernard Shaw, subtitled The Fatal Gazogene: a Brief Tragedy for Barns and Booths.

[1] Shaw wrote of the piece, "This tragedy was written at the request of Mr Cyril Maude, under whose direction it was performed repeatedly, with colossal success, in a booth in Regent's Park, for the benefit of The Actors' Orphanage, on the 14th July 1905".

Magnesia retires to sleep, serenaded by a heavenly choir singing "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey".

The statue raises its hands in benediction, the band plays the national anthem and attendants pass through the auditorium ejecting the audience.

Later productions included one at the Mermaid Theatre in 1967, of which the reviewer in The Times observed that Shaw's plot and punning anticipated Spike Milligan at his most surrealist.

[10] The piece was revived again at the Arts the following year in a triple bill with short comedies by Michel de Ghelderode and Chekhov.

[11] The play was adapted in 1975 for a comic opera, Lady Magnesia, by the Polish-Russian composer Mieczysław Weinberg (his Opus 112).