First performed on the London stage in 1905, Man and Superman is an extraordinary play precisely because it inverts so many of the traditional or expected roles of theater. On its surface, this play, by George Bernard Shaw, is a standard romantic comedy. It does indeed have the trappings of this genre, providing light humor and satisfying romantic pairings, along with the familiar dramas of unrequited love, debated inheritance, and secret marriages. In this case, however, the play is unusual both because its style is somewhat experimental and because it deals so deeply with complicated philosophical and political ideas.
Stylistically, the play stands out because of its long, nearly novelistic stage directions. The narrator of these stage directions is an invisible but prominent character in the drama, offering sarcastic, witty insights into the various characters' personalities. The play is also quite long, with a particularly notable digression in the form of an extended dream sequence during Act Three. It is not unusual for productions of Man and Superman to cut this dream sequence out of their performances, in fact, simply because the play's run time is already quite formidable. For these two reasons—the unusually literary stage directions and the pure length of the script—Man and Superman resembles a novel more than a drama in certain regards. In fact, it was published as a book in 1903, two years before even being performed onstage.
Man and Superman engages with the ideas of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, making it somewhat heavier than a standard romantic comedy. In particular, the play is concerned with the concept of the übermensch, here translated as "superman." The übermensch, according to Nietzsche, is an ideal future person or future state of humanity. George Bernard Shaw's interpretation of the übermensch incorporates a new concept called the life force, which can be thought of either as an instinct prompting people to reproduce in order to create a superman, or as an abstract manifestation of the superman's characteristics. Shaw weaves this complicated intellectual idea into the romantic dramas playing out among Bernard Shaw's characters, who not only discuss philosophy, but who also are attracted to one another or reject one another largely based on the urges created by the life force. The individual happiness celebrated by romance as a genre is unpacked in this script, where romance becomes a mere step in a broader human drama of perpetual improvement.
Furthermore, politics occupy an unusually prominent space in this play. Several of the main characters are socialists, and the play tends to celebrate socialism. However, these fictional leftists keep company with a wide variety of other politically-minded people. These include a moderate liberal, an anarchist, and a billionaire capitalist. Ultimately, Shaw's most impassioned socialist is also the character closest to becoming, or at least laying the groundwork for, a real superman. Therefore, Shaw suggests, radical politics go hand-in-hand with radical betterment for humanity and the world as a whole.
Finally, Man and Superman engages with some very old ideas as well as some newer and more controversial ones. Its structure echoes that of the Spanish legend of Don Juan Tenorio, and many of the main characters directly correspond to characters from that original legend. However, certain changes reflect Shaw's own perception of modernity. For instance, while the original Don Juan was, according to legend, a predatory womanizer, the Don Juan figure in this play is in fact pursued by a woman. This alteration teasingly points to the increasingly elevated status of women in Shaw's England. Shaw himself was devoted to women's suffrage, and he includes several thoughtful discussions among his characters about the trials of life as a woman in Victorian society. At the same time, Shaw's Don Juan is a pursuer, not of sensory pleasures, but of knowledge and meaning. In this sense, Don Juan becomes something of a superman himself, since his aim is to improve himself, and, by extension, to improve society.
This play contains so many inversions, academic discussions, and political debates that an audience member might easily miss a few major moments in the text. Luckily, its more complicated ideas manifest within the context of a crowd-pleasing romantic comedy with mild social critique, meaning that the play can be enjoyed on a number of levels: as a satisfying and funny stage play, or as a complex, endlessly analyzable philosophical and political text.
