What is the author's style in Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw?

There has been much debate about whether Shaw's play is a comedy or a tragedy. It certainly has elements of both. There are humorous, even farcical moments, as in the opening scene about the hens that will not lay eggs, or the moment when Robert de Baudricourt looks up apprehensively to see if there really is a halo over his head. There is a jaunty tone in the opening scenes and again in the Epilogue, but a much darker tone in between, and Joan's death can be seen as the fall of a tragic hero. On the other hand, the play does not end with her death, but with a mostly light-hearted presentation of her posthumous vindication. At least one critic has said that the play is best described as a tragicomedy.

In his Preface, Shaw calls the play a tragedy, but mainly in an attempt to distinguish it from melodrama. His point is that he is not telling a story of evil villains and a pure saint, as in a melodrama; instead, he wants to show how a murder can be committed by "normally innocent people," that is, by honorable characters who are not villains. He also notes that there is an element of comedy in the tragedy.