CATEGORY

Acclaimed as a “second Shakespeare,” Irish-born George Bernard Shaw revolutionized the British theater. Although his plays focus on ideas and issues, they are enlivened by fascinating characters, a brilliant command of language, and dazzling wit.

One of Shaw’s finest and most devilish comedies, Man and Superman portrays Don Juan as the quarry instead of the huntsman. John Tanner, upon discovering that his beautiful ward plans to marry him, flees to the Sierra Nevada mountain range, where he is captured by a group of rebels. Tanner falls asleep, and dreams the famous “Don Juan in Hell” sequence, which features a sparkling Shavian debate among Don Juan, the Devil, and a talkative statue. With its fairy-tale ending and a cast literally from hell, Man and Superman is a hilarious cocktail of farce, Nietzschean philosophy, and Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
Also included in this volume are Candida, Shaw’s first real success on the stage, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, which poked fun at the Victorian attitude toward prostitution, and The Devil’s Disciple, a play set during the American Revolution.

John A. Bertolini is Ellis Professor of the Liberal Arts at Middlebury College, where he teaches dramatic literature, Shakespeare, and film. He has written The Playwrighting Self of Bernard Shaw and articles on Hitchcock and on British and American dramatists. Bertolini also wrote the introduction and notes to the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of Shaw’s Pygmalion and Three Other Plays.