The Doctor's Dilemma

Mit seinem 1923 entstandenen »klassischen Stück« über das Bauernmädchen Johanna von Orléans, das sich allein von inneren Stimmen leiten ließ, 1431 als Ketzerin auf dem Scheiterhaufen endete und nach postumer Revision des Todesurteils 1920 heiliggesprochen wurde, erreichte Shaws dramatisches Schaffen seinen Höhepunkt: In seinem menschlich reifsten Werk verzichtet er auf Überzeichnung und effektsicheren Witz zugunsten einer perfekt ausbalancierten Dialektik, die keinen »Bösewicht« und simplen Gegner des Helden mehr braucht. Shaw stellt Individuen dar, in denen sich auch Zeitgenossen anderer Epochen betroffen wiedererkennen müssen - Geschichte wird so zu möglicher Gegenwart.

Wie der Phonetik-Professor Henry Higgins einer ehrgeizigen Wette wegen dem »Mädchen aus der Gosse« Schliff und Umgangsformen beibringt und ihr in einem wahren Dressurakt, der mitunter auch Züge der Folter trägt, eine zweite Identität aufzwingt, ohne der Verwandlung ein emotionales Gleichgewicht zur Seite zu stellen, das enthüllt dem lachenden Beobachter um so schärfer die schmerzliche Wirklichkeit, in der äußere Veränderungen zwar den notwendigen Anfang für ein humaneres Zusammenleben darstellen, keineswegs aber eine Garantie auf individuelles Glück.

George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 - 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.Born in Dublin, Shaw moved to London in 1876, where he struggled to establish himself as a writer and novelist, and embarked on a rigorous process of self-education. By the mid-1880s he had become a respected theatre and music critic. Following a political awakening, he joined the gradualist Fabian Society and became its most prominent pamphleteer. Shaw had been writing plays for years before his first public success, Arms and the Man in 1894. Influenced by Henrik Ibsen, he sought to introduce a new realism into English-language drama, using his plays as vehicles to disseminate his political, social and religious ideas. By the early twentieth century his reputation as a dramatist was secured with a series of critical and popular successes that included Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma and Caesar and Cleopatra.… In 1938 he provided the screenplay for a filmed version of Pygmalion for which he received an Academy Award. His appetite for politics and controversy remained undiminished; by the late 1920s he had largely renounced Fabian Society gradualism and often wrote and spoke favourably of dictatorships of the right and left-he expressed admiration for both Mussolini and Stalin. In the final decade of his life he made fewer public statements, but continued to write prolifically until shortly before his death, aged ninety-four, having refused all state honours, including the Order of Merit in 1946.Since Shaw's death scholarly and critical opinion about his works has varied, but he has regularly been rated among British dramatists as second only to Shakespeare; analysts recognise his extensive influence on generations of English-language playwrights. The word Shavian has entered the language as encapsulating Shaw's ideas and his means of expressing them. (wikipedia.org) (lib)

Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw was written in 1903 as a four act drama, responding to those who had questioned Shaw as to why he had never written a play based on the Don Juan theme. Man and Superman opened at The Royal Court Theatre in London on 23 May 1905 without the performance of the 3rd Act. A part of the act, Don Juan in Hell (Act 3, Scene 2), was performed when the drama was staged on June 4, 1907 at the Royal Court. The play was not produced in its entirety until 1915 by the Travelling Repertory Company at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh.The long third act of the play is often cut. Don Juan in Hell consists of a philosophical debate between Don Juan (played by the same actor who plays Jack Tanner), and the Devil, with Doña Ana (Ann) and the Statue of Don Gonzalo, Ana's father (Roebuck Ramsden, an aged acquaintance of Tanner's and Ann's Guardian) looking on. Don Juan in Hell is often performed separately as a play in its own right, most famously in the 50's in a concert version with Charles Boyer as Don Juan, Charles Laughton as the Devil, Cedric Hardwicke as the Commander, and Agnes Moorehead as Doña Ana. This version was also released as a spoken word album on LP, but has yet to appear on CD. However, the complete performance recording is now available at various sites on the Internet.Although Man and Superman can be performed as a light comedy of manners Shaw intended the drama to be something much deeper, as suggested by the title. This title comes from Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical ideas about the "Übermensch" ("Superman"). The plot centers on John Tanner, author of "The Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion," which is published with the play as a 58-page appendix. Tanner is a confirmed bachelor despite the pursuits of Ann Whitefield and her persistent efforts to make him marry her. Ann is referred to as "the Life Force" and represents Shaw's view that in every culture, it is the women who force the men to marry them rather than the men who take the initiative. (lib)

Includes "The Devil's Disciple," "Caesar and Cleopatra," and "Captain Brassbound's Conversion," plus prefaces and notes by George Bernard Shaw. (lib)