Man and Superman

Shaw established a reputation as a dramatist during the 1890s with plays including Arms and the Man (1894), ''The Devil's Disciple (1897) and Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) and by the start of the twentieth century he was recognised as an important figure in the British theatre. The drama critic A. B. Walkley suggested that Shaw should write a play based on the Don Juan legend. In May 1900 Shaw began sketching a Parliament in Hell between Don Juan and the Devil. His biographer Michael Holroyd writes, "Around the Socratic debate he composed a three-act comedy, completing the scenario between 2 July and 8 October 1901. … in June 1902, this many-layered work, now called Man and Superman. A Comedy and a Philosophy'', was finished". Shaw immediately worked on a revised draft and in January 1903 he read it aloud to his friends Beatrice and Sidney Webb, who were enthusiastic about the piece. ==First productions==

The main body of the play – without the Act 3 dream sequence Don Juan in Hell – was first given by the Incorporated Stage Society at a matinee at the Court Theatre, London, on 21 May 1905. From the third performance (23 May) the play was presented by the Granville Barker-Vedrenne management as part of a series of matinees they were presenting. There were fourteen matinee performances of the play in this first run. The piece was given at 68 evening and matinee performances at the Court between 23 October and 30 December 1905 with mainly the original cast. The first performance of the Don Juan in Hell episode was at the Court on 4 June 1907 in a series of eight matinee performances presented by the Granville Barker-Vedrenne management, with Loraine as Don Juan, Michael Sherbrook as the statue, Norman McKinnel as the Devil and McCarthy as Doña Ana. == Summary ==

Mr Whitefield has recently died, and his will indicates that his daughter Ann should be left in the care of two men, Roebuck Ramsden and John Tanner. Ramsden, a venerable old man, distrusts John Tanner, an eloquent youth with revolutionary ideas, whom Shaw's stage directions describe as "prodigiously fluent of speech, restless, excitable (mark the snorting nostril and the restless blue eye, just the thirty-secondth of an inch too wide open), possibly a little mad". In spite of what Ramsden says, Ann accepts Tanner as her guardian, though Tanner does not want the position at all. She also challenges Tanner's revolutionary beliefs with her own ideas. Despite Tanner's professed dedication to anarchy, he is unable to disarm Ann's charm, and she ultimately persuades him to marry her, choosing him over her more persistent suitor, a young man, Tanner's friend, named Octavius Robinson. ==Characters ==

• Roebuck Ramsden, an ageing civil reformer who was friend to the late Mr Whitefield. He corresponds to the statue in the Don Juan myth, who is in turn the representation of the spirit of Don Gonzalo, the father of Doña Ana (in Act III, Shaw writes of The Statue, "His voice, save for a much more distinguished intonation, is so like the voice of Roebuck Ramsden"). • Octavius Robinson, an amiable young man who is in love with Ann Whitefield. Brother to Violet Robinson. He represents "Don Ottavio" from the Don Juan myth. as Jack Tanner, 1911|alt=youngish, clean-shaven white man in a light-coloured suit, seated on a garden step, looking pensive • John "Jack" Tanner, a well-educated, well-spoken man who takes everything seriously, including himself; a "political firebrand and confirmed bachelor." Allegedly the descendant of Don Juan, as well as the modern representation of the Don Juan character (in Act III, Shaw notes Don Juan's resemblance to Tanner: "Besides, in the brief lifting of his face, now hidden by his hat brim, there was a curious suggestion of Tanner. A more critical, fastidious, handsome face, paler and colder, without Tanner's impetuous credulity and enthusiasm, and without a touch of his modern plutocratic vulgarity, but still a resemblance, even an identity"). The name "John Tanner" is an anglicisation of the Spanish name "Juan Tenorio", which is the full name of Don Juan. • Henry Straker, chauffeur with a cockney accent (representing Leporello from the Mozart opera). • Hector Malone Jr, an American gentleman who is secretly married to Violet Robinson. • Hector Malone Sr, an elderly gentleman who has worked hard throughout his life to attain a high social status in which he now takes pride. • Ann Whitefield, a young woman, graceful, somewhat enigmatic. She corresponds to the character Doña Ana in the Don Juan myth (in Act III, Shaw's stage direction refers to Doña Ana de Ulloa as "so handsome that in the radiance into which her dull yellow halo has suddenly lightened one might almost mistake her for Ann Whitefield"). • Mrs Whitefield, mother of Ann, and widow of the late Mr Whitefield. • Susan Ramsden, unmarried sister of Roebuck Ramsden. • Violet Robinson, sister of Octavius Robinson. She has been secretly married to Hector Malone Jr. • Mendoza, an anarchist who collaborates with Tanner. Mendoza is the "President of the League of the Sierra," a self-described brigand. He corresponds to Shaw's conception of the Devil as he would be portrayed in the Don Juan myth (Shaw writes of "The Devil" in Act III: "A scarlet halo begins to glow; and into it the Devil rises, very Mephistophelean, and not at all unlike Mendoza, though not so interesting"). == Interpretation==

Act III / Don Juan in Hell The long third act of the play, which shows Don Juan himself having a conversation with several characters in Hell, is often cut. Charles A. Berst observes of Act III: Don Juan in Hell consists of a philosophical debate between Don Juan (played by the same actor who plays Jack Tanner), and the Devil, with Doña Ana (Ann) and the Statue of Don Gonzalo, Ana's father (Roebuck Ramsden) looking on. This third act is sometimes performed separately as a play in its own right. In 1974–1975, Kurt Kasznar, Myrna Loy, Edward Mulhare and Ricardo Montalbán toured nationwide in John Houseman's production, playing 158 cities in six months. Ideas The play is described by Shaw as "a comedy and a philosophy". Although it can be performed as a light comedy of manners, Shaw intended the drama to be something deeper, as suggested by the title, which comes from Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical ideas about the "Übermensch" (although Shaw distances himself from Nietzsche by placing the philosopher at the very end of a long list of influences). As Shaw notes in his "Epistle Dedicatory" (dedication to the critic A. B. Walkley) he wrote the play as "a pretext for a propaganda of our own views of life". The plot centres on John Tanner, author of "The Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion", which is published with the play as a 58-page appendix. Both in the play and in the "Handbook" Shaw takes Nietzsche's theme that mankind is evolving, through natural selection, towards "superman" and develops the argument to suggest that the prime mover in selection is the woman: Ann Whitefield makes persistent efforts to entice Tanner to marry her yet he remains a bachelor. As Shaw himself puts it: "Don Juan had changed his sex and become Dona Juana, breaking out of the Doll's House and asserting herself as an individual". This is an explicit, intended reversal of Tirso de Molina's play The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest, more widely known as the source of Da Ponte's Don Giovanni; here Ann, representing Doña Ana, is the predator – "Don Juan is the quarry instead of the huntsman," as Shaw notes. Ann is referred to as "the Life Force" and represents Shaw's view that in every culture, it is the women who force the men to marry them rather than the men who take the initiative. ==Critical reception==

After the Broadway premiere in 1905 the New York correspondent of The Daily Telegraph reported: The New York Times said, "It was a brilliant comedy, acted to perfection". ==Revivals and adaptations==

In most productions the Don Juan in Hell sequence is omitted. It ran for 167 performances. The first London production of the full play, including the Don Juan in Hell sequence, was given at the Regent Theatre in October 1925. The last pre-war London production was at the Old Vic in 1938. Lewis Casson directed, Anthony Quayle played Jack and Valerie Tudor played Ann. 1951 to present The first West End revival after the Second World War was at the New Theatre in 1951. A revival at the Prince's in the same year included Don Juan in Hell. The Royal Shakespeare Company staged the play in 1977, first at the Malvern Festival and then on tour, and finally at the Savoy Theatre in London. Richard Pasco played Jack and Susan Hampshire Ann. The National Theatre has twice staged the piece in full, including the Don Juan in Hell episode. In the first production (1981) Daniel Massey was Jack/Juan and Penelope Wilton Ann/Ana; in the second (2015) Ralph Fiennes was Jack/Juan and Indira Varma Ann/Ana. Between those productions Peter O'Toole starred in a 1982 production that toured and then played at the Haymarket Theatre in London. Ireland The Abbey Theatre presented three productions of the play, in 1917, 1925 and 1927. They were directed by J. Augustus Keogh, Michael J. Dolan and Lennox Robinson. In 2012 the Irish Repertory Theatre and Gingold Theatrical Group presented a revival directed and adapted by David Staller. France list two productions of Don Juan in Hell (), in a translation by André Maurois, but no productions of the main Man and Superman in France are recorded. North America The Internet Broadway Database lists five productions of the play. The first, in 1905, starred Loraine and Fay Davis and ran for 192 performances. A revival directed by and starring Maurice Evans ran for 295 performances in 1947–48. In 1982 David Wheeler directed a production at the Charles Playhouse in Boston, starring Richard Jordan and Diane Salinger. During rehearsals, the play was gradually whittled down to a three-hour length, but the "Don Juan in Hell" sequence survived intact. In 1990 South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California staged a production, with the Don Juan in Hell act included, directed by Martin Benson and starring John de Lancie as Jack Tanner and his wife Marnie Mosiman as Ann Whitefield. The Shaw Festival in Canada opened its first season (1962) with Don Juan in Hell and presented the main play in 1966 with Barry Morse and Pat Galloway as the protagonists (1966). In two later festival productions, which included Don Juan in Hell, the leading roles were played by Ian Richardson and Carole Shelley (1977), and Michael Ball and Kate Trotter (1989). The festival again staged the work in 2004 with Ben Carlson and Fiona Blair as Tanner and Ann, and in 2019 with Gray Powell and Sara Topham. Radio In 1946, the BBC Third Programme broadcast the entire play over the wireless for the first time. The production was directed by Peter Watts. It starred John Garside, Leonard Sachs, Sebastian Shaw and Grizelda Hervey among others. A 1965 adaptation starred Robert Hardy as Tanner and Fenella Fielding as Ann. Television A 1958 adaptation for television by Associated Television featured Basil Henson as Tanner and Ann Walford as Ann. BBC Television broadcast the play in 1968 with Eric Porter and Maggie Smith as the protagonists. In 1983 Harlech Television filmed and broadcast the Haymarket production with O'Toole in the lead. ==Notes, references and sources==

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