Girl Gets Boy

In his preface to Man and Superman, Shaw states that despite "a feeble romantic convention that the initiative in sex business must always come from the man," the reality is that "the serious business of sex is left by men to women […]." In Shakespeare's plays, which dramatize this reality, "the woman always takes the initiative." In them, "the love interest is the interest of seeing the woman hunt the man down." The only exception Shaw finds is Petruchio, but he is not really a lover, only "a purely commercial matrimonial adventurer." In his own plays, he claims, Woman "behaves just as Woman did in the plays of Shakespear."¹ Skepticism is always in order when "always" appears in a sentence, including this one. In The Taming of the Shrew, to take the Shakespearean instance that Shaw took, he says nothing of Bianca's suitors, who actively woo her. In Much Ado About Nothing, to take another Shakespearean instance, Beatrice and Benedick are tricked into pursuing each other. In The Philanderer, to take a Shavian example, Charteris, though pursued by one woman, himself pursues another. In Major Barbara, it is clear that Cusins joined the Salvation Army to be near Barbara, and Shaw's screen version of it shows that each takes the initiative. When Cusins introduces himself to Barbara, he acts first, wasting no time in declaring his love for her; she then wastes no time in taking him home to meet her family. Nevertheless, Shaw's assertion about Shakespeare and himself is usually right, and it is certainly right about Man and Superman. A companion essay ("Boy Gets Girl") will look into an instance, You Never Can Tell, where it is not the case.

Most spectators and readers know that in a comedy, and "A Comedy" is part of the subtitle of Man and Superman, an unmarried leading man and an unmarried leading lady will—especially in a play first published in 1903—become engaged to marry by the end of the last act. If neither or either does not want to do so at the beginning of the play (Beatrice and Benedick come immediately to mind), part of the fun is watching how the author contrives to get them to do so before the end. While we're at it, let's forget about what Jack Tanner calls the Life Force until it becomes relevant to the theme of this essay. Contrary to Ann Whitefield, it does not sound in the least like "Life Guards." If anything, it sounds like "live horse." More to the point is that I'm not going to talk about Creative Evolution. I'm going to talk about a good-looking, nubile leading lady and a good-looking, eligible leading man on a stage. This means (a) heterosexual sex, and (b) the dramatization and performance of sexual attraction on stage.² At times, Shaw depicts sexuality as steamily as he does in his first play, Widowers' Houses. As actors, directors, and readers should recognize, sex underlies or overlays the action of his plays. How it does so in the frame play of Man and Superman is part of my subject.

Shaw gave the rights to produce Man and Superman in America to the actor Robert Loraine. According to his wife, Winifred Loraine, in her book about him, Head Wind, when Robert tried to persuade New York theater managers to finance its American première with him in the leading role, he read them the play, which, it now seems difficult to believe, they found hard to fathom.

"Where's the plot in it, Bob?" asked the managers. "What's it about?"

"It's about a woman chasing a man," replied Bob, desperate as to how to make the blind see.

"And whoever heard of such a thing?" replied one manager. "Do you suppose that that will appeal to the women in the audience? Has a woman ever chased you? Say, has she, Bob, or have they? Have they? Tell me."

And Bob said, "Shut up," and blushed, and turned away.

In other words, after denial came wink-wink-nudge-nudge, which was...