3 Review(s)

Subtitled as ‘A Comedy and a Philosophy’, George Bernard Shaw published Man and Supermanin 1903, and it was fully staged in 1915 at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh. The title comes fromFriedrich Nietzche’s ideas about the Ubermensch or ‘Superman’. The plot centers on John Tanner,and Ann Whitefield and her persistent efforts to make him marry her. Written in a response to arequest for a ‘Don Juan’ play, it is based on his belief in the conflict between man as the spiritualcreator and woman as the guardian of the biological continuity of the human race. Shaw, in thiswork, incorporates the concept of ‘life force’ and succeeds in painting a satirical view of the eternalbattle of the sexes.