Shaw

[DIONYSOS]
I knew that I could do it
I knew it, I knew it
I knew they'd all pooh-pooh it
And indeed they did
I knew if I stuck to it
I'd somehow get through it
At times I thought, "Oh, screw it!"
But proceed I did
And oh, you kid -- !

I just met Shaw!
I got to meet Shaw!
There isn't any doubt
The man's without
A single flaw!
I talked to Shaw
I said to him, "Shaw
The world is in a crisis."
He said, "Listen, Dionysos
What you need is Shaw
I'll go with you," says Shaw
"I happen to be free
And who could be
A bigger draw?"

That instant generosity
That's Shaw!
The verbal virtuosity
That's Shaw!
The fearless animosity
That mind with such velocity --
All right, there's the pomposity
But that's just Shaw
And maybe some verbosity
But still you'll be in awe

[DIONYSOS]
And here comes Shaw!

[SHAW]
Dionysos, your arrival is most fortuitous. My fellow playwrights I fear have lost the art of conversation, but not, unfortunately, the power of speech

[The SHAVIANS enter laughing]

[DIONYSOS]
He has no use for piety
Or notions of propriety
He'll show us our society
In ways we never saw

[SHAW]
I'm sick to death of the Underworld. It is like sitting for all eternity at the first act of a fashionable play before the complications begin

[DIONYSOS]
The world will soon be dancing "The Shaw."

[DIONYSIAN]
How do you dance the Shaw?

[DIONYSOS]
[To the SHAVIANS]
Tell him

[SHAVIANS]
First you think
Then you comment

[Music stops momentarily as they all murmur something brief
And judicious to each other; then it resumes]

[SHAVIANS]
Then you think
Then you discuss

[Music stops again as they babble to each other more animatedly; two loud chords halt the discussion and music continues]

[SHAVIANS]
Then you read
Then you make a quip

[SHAW]
All great truths begin as blasphemies

[SHAVIANS]
That's how you dance "The Shaw."

[DIONYSOS]
Isn't he amazing?
Isn't he adorable?
[to the SHAVIANS]
Couldn't you die?
Well, you already have
Still --

[SHAVIANS]
Words can dance
Thoughts can dance
Syllables can samba
Sentences can waltz around in your mind
Epigrams can leap and bound
Simply from the way they sound --

[SHAW]
Patriotism is the conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it

[DIONYSOS]
Even when he's not profound
He's so refined!

[SHAW]
Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few

[SHAVIANS]
Shaw will show the way
Shaw is for today
Take him off the shelf

[DIONYSOS]
Everything he writes
Dazzles and delights --
He told me so himself

[SHAW]
When a man knows nothing and thinks he knows everything
That points clearly to a political career

[DIONYSOS]
Couldn't you just put him on
Toast points and eat him for lunch?
I'll show them Shaw!

[SHAVIANS]
First you think...

[DIONYSOS]
I want to share Shaw!

[SHAVIANS]
Then you reason...

[DIONYSOS]
I'm sure of Shaw!

[SHAVIANS]
Then you think
Then you digress...

[SHAW]
The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them but to be indifferent to them; that is the essence of inhumanity. Next!

[SHAVIANS]
Such sanity, humanity
Who cares about the vanity?
His work is just so literate
It leaves you all atwitter, it's
Got gravity and levity
That's why it's got longevity

[DIONYSOS]
A little short on brevity
Is that against the law?

[SHAVIANS]
We still need Shaw!
He's bringing back Shaw!
The world will have an orgy
Of Georgie
Shaw!