How He Lied to Her Husband

About

Shaw's brief 1904 one-act skewers the conventions of the love triangle: a young poet who has written passionate verses to a married woman is caught by her husband — who is not jealous at all, but deeply insulted that the verses aren't about him. The play reverses every expected comic convention in about twenty minutes. Written as a companion curtain-raiser to Candida, it demonstrates Shaw's gift for compact comic construction and willingness to deflate Romantic sentiment with a single logical reversal.