Shaw lived and wrote during times of great turbulence of more than world scale, of scale of history as well as world. Feudal era passing and ideas of equality of all humans (- then they said men, forgetting women are not always included, so almost a foot behind women followed with demands and questions re their equal rights, fought in most western nations with great rigorous opposition from men and often women who saw their privileges in riding on men's coattails slipping away if they had to be independent -) not only being put forth but seeming to take root, flourish, fly, and already establish in various places, with great revolutions needed to bring them to fore taking place in others.
So he wrote of things to come, things being thought and discussed, things seeming to come true, and human follies and natures and interactions making the live tragedies and horrors seem not only bearable but funny and hilarious, as often they must have been. Inca Of Perusalem is one such play.
The princess of the realm is modest and unable to insist on being treated with the due respect she ought to be paid by average and avaricious hotel managers, and it takes a smart and formidable young woman to set things right, so of course the princess cannot help employing her albeit she is a bit scared of the new maid. Then there is the question of the Inca who has sent a proposal to the princess on behalf of his son, and an emissary to meet her, in reality to inspect her to see if she is fit to be queen some day.
Only of course, as the readers know by now being accustomed to the device a century after such authors set the precedent, the emissary is Inca incognito and the young woman he meets and is browbeaten by and smitten by is the maid. Both however are smart, so everything turns out fine. Meanwhile the readers - and audience in theater if that is how one comes across this - have had fun.
