Major Barbara play in a more contemporary context, away from the immediate historical context of its original period. Major Barbara Major Barbara is a three-act English play by George Bernard Shaw, written and premiered in 1905 and first published in 1907. The story concerns an idealistic young woman, Barbara Undershaft, who is engaged in helping the poor as a Major in the Salvation Army in London. For many years, Barbara and her siblings have been estranged from their father, Andrew Undershaft, who now reappears as a rich and successful munitions maker. Undershaft, the father, gives money to the Salvation Army, which offends
George Bernard Shaw "The Bernard Shaw Society", remains active . More recent societies have been established in Japan and India. Besides his collected music criticism, Shaw has left a varied musical legacy, not all of it of his choosing. Despite his dislike of having his work adapted for the musical theatre ("my plays set themselves to a verbal music of their own") two of his plays were turned into musical comedies: "Arms and the Man" was the basis of "The Chocolate Soldier" in 1908, with music by Oscar Straus, and "Pygmalion" was adapted in 1956 as "My Fair Lady" with book and lyrics