Dear Liar

Adaptation of the two-person stage play based on the correspondence between George Bernard Shaw and Mrs. Patrick Campbell. Playwright George Bernard Shaw and actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell began exchanging letters in 1899, when Shaw was beginning to have success as a playwright and ""Mrs. Pat"" reigned in the English theater. Taken by her beauty and talent, the married Shaw ""fell head over heels in love"" and, in 1911, wrote ""Pygmalion"" with her in mind as Eliza Doolittle. Their preparations and heated rehearsals for that play dominate Act I of this one, which finds Mrs. Pat apprehensive about playing a teen-age flower girl and picky about her costar. ""If you attempt this play on the one-star system,"" retorts Shaw, ""nothing, not even my genius, can save you."" In the concluding act, their letters touch on World War I; their quarrels over her intention to publish the correspondence; and their disparate fortunes during the 1930s. Stars Jane Alexander