Play #14 -- Man and Superman, Shaw Festival, September 28

From Facebook on the day of the play...

Before:
Uh-oh, better buckle up. Man and Superman, GB Shaw, 6 1/2 hours, incl. two intermissions, and one lunch break. Wish us luck... #shareyourshaw

First intermission:
Act 1 -- I really love Shaw. His writing is so taut. And prescient. And funny!

Second intermission:
Act III -- Don Juan in Hell. Overtones of No Exit (at least, how I felt).

After:
Aaaand... it is finished. We survived. More than I can say for Tanner.
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Later:
Is the title an homage to Nietzsche?  A prediction of the coming of DC Comics' most popular superhero?  A foreshadowing of what an audience member must become to make it through this six and a half hour marathon of a show?

I don't know the answer, but given its billing as a long (LLLLLOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGG) four-act play, broken up by two traditional intermissions and one 70-minute lunch break, it was a bit of a test of endurance -- for the actors certainly as much as the audience!  Talk about how amazing it is to memorize the lines needed in a normal play.  Imagine having to memorize multiple monologues (some over ten minutes, surely) in an essentially double-length play!  Given its test of endurance for both actor and audience, perhaps it's not surprising that they only had 17 performances of Man and Superman all season.  (FYI, this was in the Festival Theatre.)

Even so, I found it to be much more manageable than I expected.  Paced as it was, each act felt like a normal-length act (because they were), and only the third act, Don Juan in Hell, performed after the lunch break, was a bit challenging to make it through awake.  But that could have been due to its somewhat surreal setting (a Hell that was actually more "fun" than Heaven) and its very (overly?) verbose monologues.  Even the characters acknowledged how long-winded they were, pointing out how, "if I could get a word in edgewise," they would probably go on and on themselves.  "You do go on a bit."

And in the more "normal" bits of the play, it was vintage Shaw, witty dialogue, jousting repartee, challenging ideas.  A definitely satisfying addition to the play life list.  (Just please don't make me watch Don Juan in Hell again.  Please.)