Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch

In this ambitious cycle of five plays, Shaw projects humanity's future across three millennia, asking a daring question: what if we could live for centuries? Beginning in the Garden of Eden and concluding in the year 3000, the drama traces the evolution of human consciousness, society, and spirit through ages of extended life. Shaw attacks the mechanistic Darwinism of his era, arguing instead for 'Creative Evolution' - a purposeful, intelligent development of the species driven by will and imagination rather than blind chance. The earliest plays portray primitive humans facing mortality's mystery; the later ones imagine descendants who have expanded their lifespans to hundreds of years, developing radically altered perceptions of time, truth, and transcendence. As always with Shaw, the argument crackles with wit, paradox, and polemical ferocity. He was not merely imagining science fiction - he was proposing a philosophical revolution in how we understand human potential. The work remains startlingly prescient in an age of genetic engineering and longevity research, challenging readers to consider what we might become if given the time to truly evolve.