Major Barbara

In a wintery London drawing‑room, Lady Britomart Undershaft commands the space with a mixture of matronly authority and sharp wit. She summons her younger brother Stephen, a freshly‑mature Cambridge graduate, to sit opposite her on a dark leather settee. Their conversation quickly turns from polite exchange to a tense briefing, as she insists he take an active role in the family’s tangled affairs.

Britomart reveals that the family's patriarch, the ruthless magnate Andrew Undershaft, looms over every decision, especially the marriages and fortunes of his daughters. She asks Stephen to help navigate a delicate will that restricts the girls’ inheritances and to confront the moral compromises that fund their comfortable lives. The scene sets up a clash between social respectability and the stark realities of wealth, promising both witty debate and deeper questions about duty, faith, and the cost of power.