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The occasion for that 2001 article was, astonishingly, Mr. Warner’s American stage debut at age 60 in a production of George Bernard Shaw’s “Major Barbara” by the Roundabout Theater Company in New York.

Warner returned to theater in 2001 after almost three decades to play Andrew Undershaft in a Broadway revival of George Bernard Shaw’s “Major Barbara.”

The war profiteer — the business leader who reaps profits from carnage — has been a stock cultural character since even before George Bernard Shaw put him on stage in his 1905 play “Major Barbara.”

As the show evolved, details of Driver’s life would seep into the scripts; in the third season, the fictional Adam lands a role in Shaw’s “Major Barbara” on Broadway, a nod to Driver’s appearance in “Mrs. Warren’s Profession.”

She had given up a formal career, but she began acting in local Civic Theatre productions—George Bernard Shaw’s “Major Barbara,” Neil Simon’s “Plaza Suite,” Chekov’s “Uncle Vanya,” and Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler,” among many.