Androcles and the Lion (Version 2)

Androcles and the Lion satirical play written in 1912 by George Bernard Shaw. It is set in Ancient Rome, and on the surface it appears to be a retelling of a parable of the same name in which a runaway slave is thrown to a lion in the Coliseum but spared because of his earlier kindness shown to that same lion in the wild. Shaw uses this Roman parable to, in his own words, represent "...the Roman persecutions of the early Christians, not as the conflict of a false theology with a true, but as what all such persecutions essentially are: an attempt to suppress a propaganda that seemed to threaten the interests involved in the established law and order..." It is a complex, quick-witted, and deeply human play which explores different types of faith through Christian martyrs with vastly different understandings of their religion -- a humanitarian naturalist, a fearless freethinker, a rigid moralist, and a blackguard debauchee -- set against upholders of the status quo who are represented by a Captain, the Emperor, and other participant in imperial cruelty, from gladiators to patricians to arena managers. - Summary by Phil Surette