George Bernard Shaw and "Caesar and Cleopatra", Shaw's counterblast to Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra", seen in New York in 1906 and in London the following year. Now prosperous and established, Shaw experimented with unorthodox theatrical forms described by his biographer Stanley Weintraub as "discussion drama" and "serious farce". These plays included "Getting Married" (premiered 1908), "The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet" (1909), "Misalliance" (1910), and "Fanny's First Play" (1911). "Blanco Posnet" was banned on religious grounds by the Lord Chamberlain (the official theatre censor in England), and was produced instead in Dublin; it filled the Abbey Theatre to capacity. "Fanny's First Play", a comedy
George Bernard Shaw early Fabians, mainly under the influence of Shaw, was to "alter history by rewriting it". Shaw's talent as a pamphleteer was put to immediate use in the production of the society's manifesto—after which, says Holroyd, he was never again so succinct. After the turn of the twentieth century, Shaw increasingly propagated his ideas through the medium of his plays. An early critic, writing in 1904, observed that Shaw's dramas provided "a pleasant means" of proselytising his socialism, adding that "Mr Shaw's views are to be sought especially in the prefaces to his plays". After loosening his ties with the Fabian