Shaw was a consummate dramatic artist. A technical device of this kind is apt to make the play untheatrical, because the author, failing to express his meaning through the words of his erecters, is inclined to fall back upon this easier, because more direct, method of explaining his purposes.
It has been said by many that Shaw was not a born dramatist, that he had merely seized on the theatre because it have him a platform from which to preach his sermons, that replays are little more than illustrations of his prefaces. This view, it is almost certain, must be rejected by future historians of the drama. No writer has shown such a vivid and appreciative sense of the theatre as Shaw, and it is because of the theatrical qualities in his work that his plays will survive.