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    Don Juan in Hell: From Man and Superman
    Don Juan in Hell: From Man and Superman
    Don Juan in Hell: From Man and Superman
    Ebook82 pages1 hour

    Don Juan in Hell: From Man and Superman

    By George Bernard Shaw

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Using intriguing characters and sparkling dialogue, George Bernard Shaw explored ideas and issues that transformed the conventions of British theater. "Don Juan in Hell" showcases the master's art at its best.
    An episode from Act Three of Man and Superman, "Don Juan in Hell" is often presented independently of the rest of the play. Rooted in the Don Juan legend — particularly as it appears in Mozart's opera Don Giovanni — this dream sequence forms a play within a play. It consists of a dramatic reading in which three characters from Man and Superman appear in archetypal guises: Don Juan, the libertine turned moralist; Doña Ana, the eternal female; and the Commander, a hypocrite transformed into a statue. The Devil himself joins their spirited debate on the nature of heaven and hell, of good and evil, and of human purpose, for a captivating blend of Shavian wit and Nietzschean philosophy.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateAug 2, 2012
    ISBN9780486159515
    Don Juan in Hell: From Man and Superman
    Author

    George Bernard Shaw

    George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin in 1856 and moved to London in 1876. He initially wrote novels then went on to achieve fame through his career as a journalist, critic and public speaker. A committed and active socialist, he was one of the leaders of the Fabian Society. He was a prolific and much lauded playwright and was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. He died in 1950.

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    Reviews for Don Juan in Hell

    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Shaw's tour de force, this is a work that combines realism with the supernatural to create a memorable piece of work. The section known as Don Juan in hell is justifiably renowned, and is a philosophical discussion that reminds me of Montesquieu and Machiavelli's Dialogue in Hell. The philosophy of the work is pessimistic; while it still retains a flavor of the socialist ideals of the author, there is an undertone of disillusionment. The roles of the sexes are skewered, by the means of characters upholding them to the letter, showing them for how ridiculous they really are. The leisure class comes off poorly, and the institution of marriage is, as usual in works by Shaw, reduced down to a condition of bondage. An interesting read, probably much too long to stage in this day and age, and certainly the long speeches would make any modern director cringe. Well worth the extra effort for a reading.
    • 4/5
      Shaw's tour de force, this is a work that combines realism with the supernatural to create a memorable piece of work. The section known as Don Juan in hell is justifiably renowned, and is a philosophical discussion that reminds me of Montesquieu and Machiavelli's Dialogue in Hell. The philosophy of the work is pessimistic; while it still retains a flavor of the socialist ideals of the author, there is an undertone of disillusionment. The roles of the sexes are skewered, by the means of characters upholding them to the letter, showing them for how ridiculous they really are. The leisure class comes off poorly, and the institution of marriage is, as usual in works by Shaw, reduced down to a condition of bondage. An interesting read, probably much too long to stage in this day and age, and certainly the long speeches would make any modern director cringe. Well worth the extra effort for a reading.
    • 4/5
      Very engaging for a long, dialogue-heavy play. Despite being sexist in his belief that women have nothing to offer outside of procreation, I generally love the ideas that Shaw puts forth, usually in Tanner's or Don Juan's words. He gives you frequent moments where you have to take a few seconds to think about the implications of a specific comment. And it's wonderful how Tanner turns societal convention and morality on its head by underlining the absurdity of his companions' reactions to various scandals. Probably my favorite line is quite an incidental comment but gives you an idea of Shaw's wit: Tanner: . . . A jealous sense of my new individuality arose in me -
      Ann: You hated to be treated as a boy any longer. Poor Jack!
      Tanner: Yes, because to be treated as a boy was to be taken on the old footing. I had become a new person; and those who knew the old person laughed at me. The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor: he took my measure anew every time he saw me, whilst all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.
    • 3/5
      If you remove the Don Juan in Hell sequence, this is actually an entertaining play, but GBS goes off on his tangents until you just want to slap him. Some very well-written, entertaining characters in an amusing situation.
    • 1/5
      Man and Superman, the principle drama of this book, was the weakest part. I found that I did not enjoy Shaw's play-- which is off because I usually do garnish some sense of worth about it. Nevertheless, for me, it was a disappointing read. The other two documents in this text were interesting, but not enough to bring up the book as a whole.
    • 5/5
      Man and Superman combines a dramatization of Neitsche's "ubermensch" or superman, that was believed to be the goal of creative evolution, with a romantic comedy. For that alone the play deserves five stars. That it does all of this and does it well is a remarkable achievement. The third act, Don Juan in Hell, is often played by itself. A surreal episode in the play, it is in this act that we see the realization of the play's philosophy, with the other three acts framing it with romance. Characteristic of Shaw, we see in the other three acts the Shavian inversion, where he flips commonly held notions on their head: in this case, the tradition that it is the man who is the pursuer in love. Shaw shows that in sex, it is the man who is the hunted and it is the woman who is in control.

    Book preview

    Don Juan in Hell - George Bernard Shaw

    DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS

    GENERAL EDITOR: MARY CAROLYN WALDREP

    EDITOR OF THIS VOLUME: JANET BAINE KOPITO

    Theatrical Rights

    This Dover Thrift Edition may be used in its entirety, in adaptation, or in any other way for theatrical productions, professional and amateur, in the United States, without fee, permission, or acknowledgment. (This may not apply outside of the United States, as copyright conditions may vary.)

    Bibliographical Note

    This Dover edition, first published in 2006, is an unabridged republication of the text of Don Juan in Hell (from Act III of Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy), as published by Brentano’s, New York, in 1903.The Publisher’s Note, What—Shaw Again? and Foreword were included in Don Juan in Hell, as published by Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, in 1952.

    9780486159515

    Manufactured in the United States of America

    Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y 11501

    Table of Contents

    Title Page

    Copyright Page

    WHAT—SHAW AGAIN?

    FOREWORD

    PUBLISHER’S NOTE

    WHAT—SHAW AGAIN?

    Yes, because he makes it inescapable. Yes, because his deathless voice has once again brought our so-called living theatre to life. Yes, because in a season up to now cursed and largely overrun by the efforts of pygmies he has stood out like a colossus, an intellect among the thoughtless, a genius among hacks, and a seer among the blind.

    It is the Don Juan in Hell scene from Man and Superman, as read by Charles Laughton, Charles Boyer, Cedric Hardwicke, and Agnes Moorehead, which leaves me with no other inclination or choice than to write about Shaw. For some time now audiences in city after city up and down the United States (and England, too) have had the opportunity to enjoy this seldom performed interlude that Shaw wrote fifty years ago. Now, at last, an underprivileged New York has been permitted to respond to its excitements.

    Nothing Broadway has had to offer of recent years has been more absorbing than this theatrically unorthodox presentation of a play which is not a play in the ordinary sense. The performance is in the nature of a reading. Only a shallow forestage is used and it is backed by a black curtain. In front of this curtain are microphones and stools, and music stands to hold the bound copies of the text carried in by the actors. The three men are dressed in dinner jackets and Miss Moorehead wears an evening gown. Mr. Laughton briefly and charmingly tells the essentials of the Don Juan story and announces the cast. Thereafter he leads us into the script by letting us hear Shaw’s stage direction. As far as the trappings of production go, that is all. But what an all and what an evening it proves to be!

    If any members of Local 829 managed to squeeze into the theatre where it is playing, they—and they alone—in a huge and rapt audience must have felt a certain discomfort. They must even have had a clearer understanding of Othello’s feelings when he complained his occupation was gone. For Local 829 is the United Scenic Artists. And here was Shaw proving, as Shakespeare demonstrated long ago, how unnecessary scenery is when great language sets the stage.

    Anyone can cite examples of the way in which Shakespeare relied on his pen to do the brushwork most contemporary playwrights assume will be done for them by scene designers with the aid of dependable electricians. In Macbeth the First Murderer’s The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day ; Horatio’s But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill ...; Lorenzo’s The moon shines bright. In such a night as this, When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees And they did make no noise ... ; and Lear’s Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout ... are familiar instances of the kind of verbal scenery Shakespeare supplied in play after play.

    Shaw’s employment of the language proves no less self-sufficient in this uncostumed and unset reading of Don Juan in Hell. Yet there is a striking difference. Shaw has no interest in conjuring images to evoke a physical setting. He makes fun of Dante for having described hell as a place of mud, frost, filth, fire, and venomous serpents. He is equally contemptuous of Milton for having introduced cannon and gunpowder as a means of expelling the Devil from heaven. Shaw’s hell is visually nonexistent. In his own words there is nothing; omnipresent nothing. No sky, no peaks, no light, no sound, no time nor space, utter void. There is only somewhere the faint throbbing buzz of a Mozartian strain and a pallor which reveals a man in the void, an incorporeal but visible man, seated, absurdly enough, on nothing.

    In the course of Don Juan Shaw pays tribute to the wonders of that slowly evolved bodily organ, the eye, which has permitted the living organism to see where it was going and what was coming to help or threaten it. But his concern is with neither the eye nor the visible world. Instead, it is with the evolving mind’s eye and its higher plane of vision which should enable us to see the purpose of Life. He makes his hell a void so that he can fill it with ideas. His intellect sets the stage; his fervor and his wit light it. What absorbs his attention and ours is not a place but the plight of Man. It is Man’s foolishness and his potentialities; what he has been, what he is, and what he must become if he is either to justify his existence or safeguard his survival.

    There are those beyond counting who expect a play to have a plot. They want it at least to tell how Jack gets Jill or Jill Jack. The story of Ann Whitefield’s pursuit and conquest of

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