Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy

Man and Superman inverts the Don Juan legend with gleeful mischief: the legendary seducer becomes the one being hunted. Set in Edwardian London, the play follows Ann Whitefield, a woman whose charm conceals an almost supernatural determination to marry, and John Tanner, a cynical philosopher who has read too much Schopenhauer to believe in love. Around them orbits Octavius Robinson, a poet paralyzed by propriety, and Roebuck Ramsden, an aging radical whose principles crumble when confronted with Ann's relentless vitality. But the real explosion comes in Act III, where Shaw abandons realism entirely for a philosophical dream sequence set in hell, populated by Don Juan, the Devil, and a statuesque Donna Anna. The result is simultaneously hilarious and genuinely profound, wrestling with the Life Force, Creative Evolution, and the eternal war between the sexes. Shaw's wit cuts like a blade, but beneath the comedy lies a serious argument about whether civilization is an obstacle to or an achievement of human development.