This book focuses on two important topics in Shaw’sMajor BarbaraandPygmalionthat have received little attention from critics: language and metadrama. If we look beyond the social, political, and economic issues that Shaw explored in these two plays, we discover that the stories of the two “Shavian sisters”— Barbara Undershaft and Eliza Doolittle—are deeply concerned with performance and what Jacques Derrida calls “the problem of language.” Nearly every character inMajor Barbaraproduces, directs, or acts in at least one miniature play. InPygmalion, Henry Higgins is Eliza’s...