Man and Superman

by Bernard Shaw

seen at the National Theatre (Lyttleton) 4 March 2015

This production is directed by Simon Godwin with Ralph Fiennes as John Tanner, Indira Varma as Ann Whitefield, Nicholas le Prevost as Roebuck Ramsden and Tim McMullen as Mendoza. Though the text has been edited, the performance includes the third act dream/discussion known as 'Don Juan in Hell'.

The design by Christopher Oram wittily refers to the Edwardian era in which the play was published (1903) and first performed (1905) while enclosing the stage in a cloudy perspex box through which light is suffused in varying colours. For the scene in Hell the perspex walls are almost all that is present, glowing white to underscore Shaw's paradoxical views on lightness and darkness, hell and heaven. But there are quirky anachronisms all the more effective for being unexplained - the play opens with a Desert Island Discs episode featuring John Tanner, and later, although he has an old fashioned open topped sports car, and a chauffeur (as required by the text), he also receives text messages on a smartphone.

The cast are excellent, managing Shaw's wordy and witty text with dash and vigour. It is salutary to be challenged by the sheer pace of the ideas fizzing from the characters' minds and dressed in accomplished conversation and repartee, and one must concentrate fiercely to follow all the arguments and enjoy the brazen self-confidence with which they are delivered. Shaw shows himself in the tradition of Oscar Wilde's epigrammatic social comedy while subverting conventional social morality even more trenchantly in his proselytising for the 'Life Force'.

Shaw is often criticised for a lack of dramatic tension brought about by the sheer loquacity of his characters and for his tendency to lecture the audience on his ideas instead of providing an entertaining play. Here, Ralph Fiennes embodies Jack Tanner with a physical awkwardness, a shambling body language that speaks of real unease in personal engagements, so that his coruscating tirades look like frantic self-defence even as they transmit Shaw's ideas. In contrast Indira Varma gives a poised and brilliantly self-assured Ann, effortlessly achieving her ends (or the ends of the 'Life Force'?) and hardly put out at all when caught in the act. Though the torrent of words may threaten to overwhelm the situation, these two hold our interest as a combative couple almost as believable as Beatrice and Benedick in 'Much Ado About Nothing'.

The supporting cast are also excellent, with the sub-plots of Octavius's hopeless love for Ann, and his sister Violet's secret marriage to Hector Malone, deliciously off-setting the main focus of attention on the inevitable attraction between Jack and Ann. The inclusion of the 'Don Juan in Hell' interlude, where aspects of Jack, Ann, Mendoza the Spanish brigand and Ramsden (Ann's other guardian) are refracted as Don Juan, Donna Anna, the Devil, and the Commendatore respectively, is fully justified by the sheer verve of the verbal sparring on show.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable and stimulating revival of one of Shaw's greatest plays.