Court House Theatre. Photo: David Cooper.
Session One
Yulia Skalnaya, “‘To Sleep, Perchance to Dream …’: Dream Realm in Shaw’s Dramas”
The aim of this paper is to consider sleep and dream both as plot devices and universal concepts in Bernard Shaw’s plays. The research mainly concentrates on three plays: Man and Superman, Heartbreak House, and Too True to Be Good, and can be accordingly divided into three parts.
Part I is devoted to the Don Juan in Hell episode of Shaw’s early drama considering the genre of visio and comparing Shaw’s work to Cicero’s Dream of Scipio (146 BC). Both pieces treat the subjects of human vocation and destiny, the insignificance of an individual in the face of the Universe and yet insist on the importance of man’s will; both employ “sound effects” such as “the music of spheres” and Mozartian quotations. Part II explores dream as a means of world creation and as a merciful way of escaping harsh reality. The way Shaw depicts the war generation in Heartbreak House evokes the image of Sleeping Beauty – not as the character is shown in fairy tales but rather in the light of its re-evaluation in the musical theatre at the time. Part III discovers the transformation of the fin-de-siècleSleeping Beauty into a Shavian Brunhild in his later play Too True to Be Good.Here the central character no longer seeks oblivion in a pseudo-feverish sleep but sees her awakening as a revelation on the meaning of Life. This perspective also reveals connections with Maurice Maeterlinck’s plays as well as Russian epic poems.
John McInerny, “The Disconnect between the Comic Plot and Juvenalian Satire in Man and Superman”
The plot of the comedy that surrounds the famous dream sequence in Man and Superman has a familiar farce structure; it includes such popular ingredients as a male protagonist who doesn’t know the heroine’s intentions about him, and a car chase. The characters, however, are a surprisingly discordant element. They seem to belong to the Juvenalian tradition of harsh, more cynical satire, the kind that is unsparingly critical of human shortcomings. As such, Tanner, Ann, Octavius and the rest fit awkwardly into the benign comedy, a circumstance which has sometimes led to confusion for critics, actors, and audiences. The paper will suggest a number of possible reasons why Shaw chose to create such characters, with particular stress on speculation that they spring from Shaw’s frustration at the lack of social and human progress, despite all his reform efforts, and his longing for evolution to produce the necessary super people.
Lisa C. Robertson, “‘Vanitas Vanitatum’: Revolutionary Individualism in George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman and Margaret Harkness’s George Eastmont, Wanderer”The decades around the twentieth century were a period in which socialist unity became, according to Stephen Yeo, an impossibility. Following the formation of the Socialist Democratic Federation in 1884, the increasing diversification among political factions on the left of Britain’s political spectrum culminated in a period of intense disillusionment for many socialist activists and thinkers. For Margaret Harkness, an author and activist who played a pivotal role in the 1889 Dockworkers’ Strike, that event’s success signalled not the advent of socialism, but its impossibility. During the 1890s, Harkness and Shaw were close allies: not only were they part of the same friendship and political circles, but Shaw contributed frequently to The Novel Review, a periodical owned by Harkness. After the turn of the century, both Shaw and Harkness would explore the contradictions and complexities of radical politics – particularly as embraced by charismatic revolutionary figures. Written in 1905, Harkness’s novel George Eastmont, Wanderer explores the turmoil around the 1889 London Dock Strike. The novel is focalised through its titular hero, an ‘aristocratic socialist’ who casts off the prejudices of his own class to embrace radical socialism. Yet Eastmont is unable to see himself as one unit of a broader political movement, and is instead is possessed by an image of himself as ‘saviour of the masses’. The same year, Shaw’s Man and Superman was performed for the first time at London’s Royal Court Theatre. Written as a response to Arthur Bingham Walkley’s provocation for Shaw to engage with the Don Juan theme, Man and Superman examines love, marriage and the ‘sex question’ (496), as he describes it, in the context of broader social and political considerations. In Man and Superman, the philosophic character is also the revolutionary figure; but all of his philosophizing is exposed as only ‘a mask for a mask for proselytising’ (674). In Shaw’s play, Don Juan may be the ‘quarry instead of the huntsman’ (507), but it is the huntsman herself, Ann Whitefield, who is the true revolutionary figure.This paper considers Shaw’s Man and Superman alongside Harkness’s George Easmont, Wanderer to examine the ways that Shaw’s play offers a resolution to the ideological dilemmas revealed in Harkness’s novel. While Shaw and Harkness both examine the failures of late nineteenth-century radical politics and the dangers of revolutionary individualism, Shaw suggests – not unproblematically – that procreation is perhaps the most radical social act.
R. F. Dietrich, “Man and Roboman, or, The Secret Co-Author of Man and Superman”
Robots are “old news,” of course, but taking them seriously as evolutionary phenomena is less so, particularly if applied to Shaw, the proponent of a religion called “Creative Evolution,” which might turn out to be “creative” in a way somewhat different from what he and Henri Bergson thought. This paper on “Man and Roboman” will experiment with the seemingly outlandish idea that, contrary to what I’ve always thought, Shaw was not restricted in his understanding of evolution to its being strictly organic, an idea that would be contradictory as well to all the dictionaries which insist that evolution is strictly organic. But there are suggestions among some of our Futurists and S/F addicts these days that we need to expand that definition to include inorganic evolution since the most likely option for the future will be that, sooner or later, based on current trends, homo sapiens will “evolve,” not to Superman or any other organic being, but by creating humanoid robots through some technologically advanced engineering process. That is, man would become, not evolved according to the standard definition, but rather by becoming the creator, “the God,” of the next step in evolution by virtue of engineering prowess. Did the new inorganic version of evolution, however rudimentary and perhaps unconscious, ever appear in the mind of Shaw, and did the struggle in some early form between organic and inorganic evolution manifest itself in his works, especially Man and Superman, which deals directly with the issue? In short, did Shaw see this future coming, even if not so pessimistically as many of today’s Futurists, and perhaps less consciously of how it was occurring and would play out?
Session Three
Justine Zapin, “Ghosts, Part 2, or Getting Married”
In Quintessence of Ibsenism, Bernard Shaw ruefully muses how the “…last scene in Ghostsis so appallingly tragic that the emotions it excites prevent the meaning of the play from being seized and discussed…” (87). True, Oswald’s turn into syphilitic psychosis is tragic – as is Mrs. Alving’s realization that she must end her own son’s life – but Shaw’s contention is not without merit. The ramifications of the feminist turn of Ibsen’s “New Woman” is lost by the excess of emotion and theatrical convention at the close of Ghosts. This misstep is emended by Shaw in Getting Married, wherein he dramatizes one long discussion on the status of marriage and the necessity for liberalizing divorce laws. Often considered one of Shaw’s lesser plays, Getting Married is a response to the Alving’s terrible marriage in Ibsen’s Ghosts. Lesbia Grantham, Mrs. George Collins, and Edith Bridgenorth function as the potential future iterations of a saved Helene Alving: Mrs. Alving as Lesbia Grantham lives a life unburdened by a “filthy” husband, Mrs. Alving as Mrs. George Collins lives as a sexually gratified Superwoman, and as Edith Bridgenorth, Shaw’s “Mrs. Alving” pre-emptively reads a pamphlet warning of the horrors of marriage and secures for herself a pre-nuptial agreement. This paper investigates how Getting Married responds, redresses, and reimagines a potential world and a potential marriage contract that Ibsen’s dramatic plotting devastatingly excises.
Vishnu W. Patil, “Reality of the Virtual in Getting Married”
Recently the usage of phrase ‘virtual reality’ was challenged by Lacanian critics, who do not approve of this coinage of new form of reality but emphasize usage of three registers of reality proposed by Lacan i.e. the symbolic, the imaginary and the real. In his talk entitled “Reality of the Virtual,” Slovej Zizek extends the three registers as symbolic virtual, imaginary virtual and real virtual and in a way succeeds in explaining the modus operandi of several genres and studies like cinema and scientific theories. He believes the virtual exists and does have its impact human beings in certain manner. The virtual is defined as real effects produced by something which does not fully exist and it plays an important role in the way we perceive each other in our everyday life. In the line of Lacanian and Zizekian ways of analysis, human relationships are investigated finding the functionality of the virtual in the very nature of human feelings like acceptance, love, hatred, sexuality and so on in the context of the play Getting Married. In the play, the virtual is identified at imaginary, symbolic, and real level. The lovers in the play eventually exhibit the traits how they virtually accept or reject one another while they function in the fixed symbolic reality. The certain course of events as a consequence of several actions does bring to us the real. It eventually sums up about love, marriage, supernatural, humanity, desire, satisfaction, salvation, life, death and adultery in a certain Shavian way. During the progression from one form of reality to the other, it basically undergoes the changes caused due to a set of human mind conditions i.e. ‘known-known’, ‘known-unknown’, ‘unknown-known’ and ‘unknown-unknown’. The characters in Getting Married believe they know each other i.e. ‘known-known’. They also believe that they know the person but do not know exactly about her/him i.e. ‘known-unknown’. They do not even know that they know i.e. ‘unknown-known’. They do not know that they don’t know. And to stretch it further, Shaw brings in several dimensions of the change of human mind beyond these four traits. The paper also attempts an analysis of how author creates a virtual image of each character for its readers and how in a theatrical performances the appearance of the characters is predetermined for certain impact.
Sharon Klassen, “Should This Couple Get Married?”
Comedies at the end of the Victorian period began to consider how to ensure a long, successful union instead of ending with a socially suitable match. This paper will consider the requirements for a good marriage explored in various plays from 1892 to 1926 by Oscar Wilde, St. John Hankin, Somerset Maugham and Bernard Shaw. Do they all create couples with, as Hankin states in his essay on “Unhappy Endings,”“a reasonable prospect of happiness in the future” (Hankin III 121)? Wilde’s emphasis on honesty and love instead of people as ideals in An Ideal Husband andThe Importance of Being Earnest will begin the discussion. Then, through Hankin’s The Charity That Began at Homeand The Cassilis Engagement, the paper will consider his emphasis on common tastes and interests as the requirements for good match, and his rejection of flimsy engagements. Maugham’s approach, which places emphasis on common interests, sex, affection, children and the ability to adapt as attraction fades will be explored through plays from various stages of his career as a playwright, including Smith and The Constant Wife. To complete the comparison, Shaw’s contradictory attitude to marriage will be examined through The Philanderer, Misalliance, and Getting Married.
Session Five
Barbara Inglese, “Italian and French Opera Allusions in Arms and the Man, Major Barbara, and Man and Superman”
Bernard Shaw was the consummate Wagnerphile yet,with the possible exception of seeing Heartbreak House as Shaw’s Götterdammerung, none of his plays builds Richard Wagner’s operas (music or libretti) into the texture of the play (with the possible exception of How He Lied to Her Husband). On the other hand, Shaw used allusions, textual and musical, in many of his plays which assume a familiarity with Italian and French operas popular to his theatre audiences at the time of the plays’ premieres. Shaw knew many of these operas intimately from his early self-education and [Vandeveur] Lee’s Amateur Musical Society, and then his years as a music critic in London from 1888 to 1894. But the familiarity of his audience to these works has largely been lost today; 18th and 19th century operas are increasingly absent from most audiences’ theatre-going experiences or popular listening activities. Without at least a passing knowledge of the operas, some of the richness of Shaw’s dramatic ideas can be lost, because Shaw seems to use his music allusions as a form of “shorthand” to greater understanding of his characters and their actions. In this paper, I will look at three specific examples – Arms and the Man (Verdi’s Ernani), Major Barbara (Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Gounod’s Faust), and (of course) Man and Superman (Mozart’s Don Giovanni) and suggest that looking at these plays through this musical lens can add not only to the enjoyment of the plays but also provide a deeper understanding of Shaw’s dramaturgy for any audience.
Hisashi Morikawa, “Man and Superman: First Part of the Shavian Ring Cycle”
Man and Superman, John Bull’s Other Island, and Major Barbaracomprise trilogy corresponding to Wagner’s tetralogy of The Ring of the Nibelung. The trio might be called “a trilogy of Heaven and Hell.” The first play advocates the need for a Superman in the “heaven” of the British middle class, the second depicts Ireland as hell, and the third shows the precarious coexistence of heaven and hell in the garden city of the arms factory. In Man and Superman, Ramsden and his respectable circle parallel the gods of Valhalla. Their fuss over Violet’s pregnancy in Act I resembles the reaction of the Valhalla gods upon learning that Freia is abducted by the giants. While Ramsden is an old Wotan, Tanner is a young Wotan, a revolutionist obsessed with moral passion. The debate in the Hell Scene between Don Juan and the Devil is similar to the one that might take place between an aspiring Wotan and a cynical Loki.
Malone Sr., an American billionaire who used to be an Irish peasant, is like Alberich, Wagner’s dwarf capitalist, since both wish to avenge themselves on the Establishment. Unlike Alberich, however, Malone is heartily welcomed by Ramsden and his friends, thus cementing the collusion of world capitalists.
Tanner’s resolution to father a Superman can be compared to Wotan’s revelation in Das Rheingold to breed the Hero.Amid the celebratory atmosphere of the ending of each play, only the hero is aware of the need to generate a higher being.
Brigitte Bogar, “The Sound of Music in Man and Superman”
This paper explores how, throughout Man and Superman, Shaw indicates the melodic cadences within the dialogue with a musicality that is so significant that the play almost comes across as a musical drama or an operatic score. Shaw’s musical family background clearly influenced his critical writings, as well as his later work as a playwright. Being a musician and singer himself gave him a particular understanding of the voice as an instrument. In his updating of The Voice, its Artistic Production, Development and Preservation Shaw gained extensive knowledge of pronunciation, which would later create the link between Shaw’s early career as a music critic, and his dramas. Throughout Man and Superman Shaw indicates the melodic cadences. The audience are not only exposed to motifs from Mozart’s Don Giovanniand Gounod’s Faust, but also the repeated sound of the whistling of the chauffeur (Henry Stalker) that punctuates the action leading up to the “Dream Scene” (Act III). Here Shaw literally shows off his musical knowledge by setting the scene quoting three pieces of music from Don Giovanni, deliberately echoing his mother’s favorite opera role from Dublin. The play also contains numerous references to sounds and music throughout – painting the Shavian soundscape of the play. In the “Dream Scene” Shaw orchestrates his symphony in a quartet underscored with great rolling chords, and many musical references. Some of these are references to Don Juan, to composers such as Grieg, Wagner, Brahms and Mozart, and two Christmas songs are quoted (“I saw three ships” and “Unto us a child is born”), as well as many indications of inflection. This paper will examine how Shaw orchestrates the sound of music, not just with his musical references, but with his complete soundscape.
Yulia Skalnaya, “‘To Sleep, Perchance to Dream …’: Dream Realm in Shaw’s Dramas”
The aim of this paper is to consider sleep and dream both as plot devices and universal concepts in Bernard Shaw’s plays. The research mainly concentrates on three plays: Man and Superman, Heartbreak House, and Too True to Be Good, and can be accordingly divided into three parts.
Part I is devoted to the Don Juan in Hell episode of Shaw’s early drama considering the genre of visio and comparing Shaw’s work to Cicero’s Dream of Scipio (146 BC). Both pieces treat the subjects of human vocation and destiny, the insignificance of an individual in the face of the Universe and yet insist on the importance of man’s will; both employ “sound effects” such as “the music of spheres” and Mozartian quotations. Part II explores dream as a means of world creation and as a merciful way of escaping harsh reality. The way Shaw depicts the war generation in Heartbreak House evokes the image of Sleeping Beauty – not as the character is shown in fairy tales but rather in the light of its re-evaluation in the musical theatre at the time. Part III discovers the transformation of the fin-de-siècleSleeping Beauty into a Shavian Brunhild in his later play Too True to Be Good.Here the central character no longer seeks oblivion in a pseudo-feverish sleep but sees her awakening as a revelation on the meaning of Life. This perspective also reveals connections with Maurice Maeterlinck’s plays as well as Russian epic poems.
John McInerny, “The Disconnect between the Comic Plot and Juvenalian Satire in Man and Superman”
The plot of the comedy that surrounds the famous dream sequence in Man and Superman has a familiar farce structure; it includes such popular ingredients as a male protagonist who doesn’t know the heroine’s intentions about him, and a car chase. The characters, however, are a surprisingly discordant element. They seem to belong to the Juvenalian tradition of harsh, more cynical satire, the kind that is unsparingly critical of human shortcomings. As such, Tanner, Ann, Octavius and the rest fit awkwardly into the benign comedy, a circumstance which has sometimes led to confusion for critics, actors, and audiences. The paper will suggest a number of possible reasons why Shaw chose to create such characters, with particular stress on speculation that they spring from Shaw’s frustration at the lack of social and human progress, despite all his reform efforts, and his longing for evolution to produce the necessary super people.
Lisa C. Robertson, “‘Vanitas Vanitatum’: Revolutionary Individualism in George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman and Margaret Harkness’s George Eastmont, Wanderer”The decades around the twentieth century were a period in which socialist unity became, according to Stephen Yeo, an impossibility. Following the formation of the Socialist Democratic Federation in 1884, the increasing diversification among political factions on the left of Britain’s political spectrum culminated in a period of intense disillusionment for many socialist activists and thinkers. For Margaret Harkness, an author and activist who played a pivotal role in the 1889 Dockworkers’ Strike, that event’s success signalled not the advent of socialism, but its impossibility. During the 1890s, Harkness and Shaw were close allies: not only were they part of the same friendship and political circles, but Shaw contributed frequently to The Novel Review, a periodical owned by Harkness. After the turn of the century, both Shaw and Harkness would explore the contradictions and complexities of radical politics – particularly as embraced by charismatic revolutionary figures. Written in 1905, Harkness’s novel George Eastmont, Wanderer explores the turmoil around the 1889 London Dock Strike. The novel is focalised through its titular hero, an ‘aristocratic socialist’ who casts off the prejudices of his own class to embrace radical socialism. Yet Eastmont is unable to see himself as one unit of a broader political movement, and is instead is possessed by an image of himself as ‘saviour of the masses’. The same year, Shaw’s Man and Superman was performed for the first time at London’s Royal Court Theatre. Written as a response to Arthur Bingham Walkley’s provocation for Shaw to engage with the Don Juan theme, Man and Superman examines love, marriage and the ‘sex question’ (496), as he describes it, in the context of broader social and political considerations. In Man and Superman, the philosophic character is also the revolutionary figure; but all of his philosophizing is exposed as only ‘a mask for a mask for proselytising’ (674). In Shaw’s play, Don Juan may be the ‘quarry instead of the huntsman’ (507), but it is the huntsman herself, Ann Whitefield, who is the true revolutionary figure.This paper considers Shaw’s Man and Superman alongside Harkness’s George Easmont, Wanderer to examine the ways that Shaw’s play offers a resolution to the ideological dilemmas revealed in Harkness’s novel. While Shaw and Harkness both examine the failures of late nineteenth-century radical politics and the dangers of revolutionary individualism, Shaw suggests – not unproblematically – that procreation is perhaps the most radical social act.
R. F. Dietrich, “Man and Roboman, or, The Secret Co-Author of Man and Superman”
Robots are “old news,” of course, but taking them seriously as evolutionary phenomena is less so, particularly if applied to Shaw, the proponent of a religion called “Creative Evolution,” which might turn out to be “creative” in a way somewhat different from what he and Henri Bergson thought. This paper on “Man and Roboman” will experiment with the seemingly outlandish idea that, contrary to what I’ve always thought, Shaw was not restricted in his understanding of evolution to its being strictly organic, an idea that would be contradictory as well to all the dictionaries which insist that evolution is strictly organic. But there are suggestions among some of our Futurists and S/F addicts these days that we need to expand that definition to include inorganic evolution since the most likely option for the future will be that, sooner or later, based on current trends, homo sapiens will “evolve,” not to Superman or any other organic being, but by creating humanoid robots through some technologically advanced engineering process. That is, man would become, not evolved according to the standard definition, but rather by becoming the creator, “the God,” of the next step in evolution by virtue of engineering prowess. Did the new inorganic version of evolution, however rudimentary and perhaps unconscious, ever appear in the mind of Shaw, and did the struggle in some early form between organic and inorganic evolution manifest itself in his works, especially Man and Superman, which deals directly with the issue? In short, did Shaw see this future coming, even if not so pessimistically as many of today’s Futurists, and perhaps less consciously of how it was occurring and would play out?
Session Three
Justine Zapin, “Ghosts, Part 2, or Getting Married”
In Quintessence of Ibsenism, Bernard Shaw ruefully muses how the “…last scene in Ghostsis so appallingly tragic that the emotions it excites prevent the meaning of the play from being seized and discussed…” (87). True, Oswald’s turn into syphilitic psychosis is tragic – as is Mrs. Alving’s realization that she must end her own son’s life – but Shaw’s contention is not without merit. The ramifications of the feminist turn of Ibsen’s “New Woman” is lost by the excess of emotion and theatrical convention at the close of Ghosts. This misstep is emended by Shaw in Getting Married, wherein he dramatizes one long discussion on the status of marriage and the necessity for liberalizing divorce laws. Often considered one of Shaw’s lesser plays, Getting Married is a response to the Alving’s terrible marriage in Ibsen’s Ghosts. Lesbia Grantham, Mrs. George Collins, and Edith Bridgenorth function as the potential future iterations of a saved Helene Alving: Mrs. Alving as Lesbia Grantham lives a life unburdened by a “filthy” husband, Mrs. Alving as Mrs. George Collins lives as a sexually gratified Superwoman, and as Edith Bridgenorth, Shaw’s “Mrs. Alving” pre-emptively reads a pamphlet warning of the horrors of marriage and secures for herself a pre-nuptial agreement. This paper investigates how Getting Married responds, redresses, and reimagines a potential world and a potential marriage contract that Ibsen’s dramatic plotting devastatingly excises.
Vishnu W. Patil, “Reality of the Virtual in Getting Married”
Recently the usage of phrase ‘virtual reality’ was challenged by Lacanian critics, who do not approve of this coinage of new form of reality but emphasize usage of three registers of reality proposed by Lacan i.e. the symbolic, the imaginary and the real. In his talk entitled “Reality of the Virtual,” Slovej Zizek extends the three registers as symbolic virtual, imaginary virtual and real virtual and in a way succeeds in explaining the modus operandi of several genres and studies like cinema and scientific theories. He believes the virtual exists and does have its impact human beings in certain manner. The virtual is defined as real effects produced by something which does not fully exist and it plays an important role in the way we perceive each other in our everyday life. In the line of Lacanian and Zizekian ways of analysis, human relationships are investigated finding the functionality of the virtual in the very nature of human feelings like acceptance, love, hatred, sexuality and so on in the context of the play Getting Married. In the play, the virtual is identified at imaginary, symbolic, and real level. The lovers in the play eventually exhibit the traits how they virtually accept or reject one another while they function in the fixed symbolic reality. The certain course of events as a consequence of several actions does bring to us the real. It eventually sums up about love, marriage, supernatural, humanity, desire, satisfaction, salvation, life, death and adultery in a certain Shavian way. During the progression from one form of reality to the other, it basically undergoes the changes caused due to a set of human mind conditions i.e. ‘known-known’, ‘known-unknown’, ‘unknown-known’ and ‘unknown-unknown’. The characters in Getting Married believe they know each other i.e. ‘known-known’. They also believe that they know the person but do not know exactly about her/him i.e. ‘known-unknown’. They do not even know that they know i.e. ‘unknown-known’. They do not know that they don’t know. And to stretch it further, Shaw brings in several dimensions of the change of human mind beyond these four traits. The paper also attempts an analysis of how author creates a virtual image of each character for its readers and how in a theatrical performances the appearance of the characters is predetermined for certain impact.
Sharon Klassen, “Should This Couple Get Married?”
Comedies at the end of the Victorian period began to consider how to ensure a long, successful union instead of ending with a socially suitable match. This paper will consider the requirements for a good marriage explored in various plays from 1892 to 1926 by Oscar Wilde, St. John Hankin, Somerset Maugham and Bernard Shaw. Do they all create couples with, as Hankin states in his essay on “Unhappy Endings,”“a reasonable prospect of happiness in the future” (Hankin III 121)? Wilde’s emphasis on honesty and love instead of people as ideals in An Ideal Husband andThe Importance of Being Earnest will begin the discussion. Then, through Hankin’s The Charity That Began at Homeand The Cassilis Engagement, the paper will consider his emphasis on common tastes and interests as the requirements for good match, and his rejection of flimsy engagements. Maugham’s approach, which places emphasis on common interests, sex, affection, children and the ability to adapt as attraction fades will be explored through plays from various stages of his career as a playwright, including Smith and The Constant Wife. To complete the comparison, Shaw’s contradictory attitude to marriage will be examined through The Philanderer, Misalliance, and Getting Married.
Session Five
Barbara Inglese, “Italian and French Opera Allusions in Arms and the Man, Major Barbara, and Man and Superman”
Bernard Shaw was the consummate Wagnerphile yet,with the possible exception of seeing Heartbreak House as Shaw’s Götterdammerung, none of his plays builds Richard Wagner’s operas (music or libretti) into the texture of the play (with the possible exception of How He Lied to Her Husband). On the other hand, Shaw used allusions, textual and musical, in many of his plays which assume a familiarity with Italian and French operas popular to his theatre audiences at the time of the plays’ premieres. Shaw knew many of these operas intimately from his early self-education and [Vandeveur] Lee’s Amateur Musical Society, and then his years as a music critic in London from 1888 to 1894. But the familiarity of his audience to these works has largely been lost today; 18th and 19th century operas are increasingly absent from most audiences’ theatre-going experiences or popular listening activities. Without at least a passing knowledge of the operas, some of the richness of Shaw’s dramatic ideas can be lost, because Shaw seems to use his music allusions as a form of “shorthand” to greater understanding of his characters and their actions. In this paper, I will look at three specific examples – Arms and the Man (Verdi’s Ernani), Major Barbara (Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Gounod’s Faust), and (of course) Man and Superman (Mozart’s Don Giovanni) and suggest that looking at these plays through this musical lens can add not only to the enjoyment of the plays but also provide a deeper understanding of Shaw’s dramaturgy for any audience.
Hisashi Morikawa, “Man and Superman: First Part of the Shavian Ring Cycle”
Man and Superman, John Bull’s Other Island, and Major Barbaracomprise trilogy corresponding to Wagner’s tetralogy of The Ring of the Nibelung. The trio might be called “a trilogy of Heaven and Hell.” The first play advocates the need for a Superman in the “heaven” of the British middle class, the second depicts Ireland as hell, and the third shows the precarious coexistence of heaven and hell in the garden city of the arms factory. In Man and Superman, Ramsden and his respectable circle parallel the gods of Valhalla. Their fuss over Violet’s pregnancy in Act I resembles the reaction of the Valhalla gods upon learning that Freia is abducted by the giants. While Ramsden is an old Wotan, Tanner is a young Wotan, a revolutionist obsessed with moral passion. The debate in the Hell Scene between Don Juan and the Devil is similar to the one that might take place between an aspiring Wotan and a cynical Loki.
Malone Sr., an American billionaire who used to be an Irish peasant, is like Alberich, Wagner’s dwarf capitalist, since both wish to avenge themselves on the Establishment. Unlike Alberich, however, Malone is heartily welcomed by Ramsden and his friends, thus cementing the collusion of world capitalists.
Tanner’s resolution to father a Superman can be compared to Wotan’s revelation in Das Rheingold to breed the Hero.Amid the celebratory atmosphere of the ending of each play, only the hero is aware of the need to generate a higher being.
Brigitte Bogar, “The Sound of Music in Man and Superman”
This paper explores how, throughout Man and Superman, Shaw indicates the melodic cadences within the dialogue with a musicality that is so significant that the play almost comes across as a musical drama or an operatic score. Shaw’s musical family background clearly influenced his critical writings, as well as his later work as a playwright. Being a musician and singer himself gave him a particular understanding of the voice as an instrument. In his updating of The Voice, its Artistic Production, Development and Preservation Shaw gained extensive knowledge of pronunciation, which would later create the link between Shaw’s early career as a music critic, and his dramas. Throughout Man and Superman Shaw indicates the melodic cadences. The audience are not only exposed to motifs from Mozart’s Don Giovanniand Gounod’s Faust, but also the repeated sound of the whistling of the chauffeur (Henry Stalker) that punctuates the action leading up to the “Dream Scene” (Act III). Here Shaw literally shows off his musical knowledge by setting the scene quoting three pieces of music from Don Giovanni, deliberately echoing his mother’s favorite opera role from Dublin. The play also contains numerous references to sounds and music throughout – painting the Shavian soundscape of the play. In the “Dream Scene” Shaw orchestrates his symphony in a quartet underscored with great rolling chords, and many musical references. Some of these are references to Don Juan, to composers such as Grieg, Wagner, Brahms and Mozart, and two Christmas songs are quoted (“I saw three ships” and “Unto us a child is born”), as well as many indications of inflection. This paper will examine how Shaw orchestrates the sound of music, not just with his musical references, but with his complete soundscape.