The Devil's Disciple

Written by George Bernard Shaw

Narrated by Richard Dreyfuss and Full Cast

Shaw stands “do or die” melodrama on its head in this tale set during the American Revolution. A young hero who disdains heroism makes the ultimate sacrifice for honor and country.

An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Jennifer Albright, Pat Carroll, Stanton Davis, Bruce Davison, Richard Dix, Richard Dreyfuss, David Bryon Jackson, Lisa Pelikan, Derek Smith and Jon Tindle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: L.A. Theatre Works
• Release date: Aug 15, 2006
• ISBN: 9781580814409

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was born into a lower-class family in Dublin, Ireland. During his childhood, he developed a love for the arts, especially music and literature. As a young man, he moved to London and found occasional work as a ghostwriter and pianist. Yet, his early literary career was littered with constant rejection. It wasn’t until 1885 that he’d find steady work as a journalist. He continued writing plays and had his first commercial success with Arms and the Man in 1894. This opened the door for other notable works like The Doctor's Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra.

Reviews for The Devil's Disciple

[Sonalee Majumdar · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I find it funny that Americans are so enamored of brutal racist imperialists like Churchill, who was personally responsible for the very ungentlemanly deaths of millions of civilian Indians, Chinese, Burmese, Kenyans, Tanzanians, South Africans, etc etc …
… but minor tax increases for white peoples, gosh that truly is abhorrent tyranny!

Garbage.

[leslie398 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

While I have seen the Burt Lancaster movie version, this is my first time reading this. While I liked the full cast audiobook, it didn't include the substantial descriptions of settings and characters that the written (in my case, Kindle) version has. Most of these would be covered in a performance but are not all clear in an audio-only version so I am glad that I combined reading this in my Kindle omnibus of Shaw's plays with the audio recording. As for the play itself, I think it is one of Shaw's finest. It has his dry sense of humor coupled with a sense of social conscience but by being in a historical setting, some of Shaw's edge is mellowed yet deepened. I have found some of his work too strident but that is not the case here. In addition, the few pages of notes at the end of the play in my edition about the history of General Burgoyne & relating it to the then current Boer War was fascinating!