"Man and Superman." By Bernard Shaw. (New.) No dramatist tackled
more themes, or bigger themes, than Shaw did. Some were more congruous to his genius and his outlook on life than others—war, for instance, is a subject which he really understood very little, and certainly much less well than he under- stood politics ; but a combination of instinct and expertise enabled him to get to the heart of matters which he apprehended only, so to speak, from a distance, so that, though we are often aware of partisanship and sometimes of superficiality, we never feel that we are in the presence of falsity, that Shaw has got hold of the wrong end of the stick.
The only exception (to my mind) is his approach to sex. How well (though rather academically) he theorises about it, how skilfully presents the conflicts to which it gives rise ! Yet his attitude to the thing itself is vitiated by a certain archness. His coquettes are leally only kittens, and though we admire their darting and capri- cious grace, their tigerish pounces and their coy evasions, we are aware that they are only playing with a ball of wool. Shaw never tries to make sex dangerous or manages to make it real, and in this play, while Tanner talks about the Life Force and Ann Whitefield distributes nursery nicknames among her admirers, we are conscious of a void in their relationship which Shaw was not capable of filling.
But this does not spoil our enjoyment of a stylish and enter- taining revival. Mr. John Clements is a very good Tanner, qualifying his impetuous assurance with a certain dryness which is most effective. Miss Kay Hammond's Ann Whitefield has, among many other virtues. a very fetching urbanity, a quality of looking bland while being• brazen ; she gives a delightful and witty per- formance. Tavy's prim chivalry is safe in the hands of Mr. Allan ( uthbertson, Mr. D. A. Clarke-Smith is a good straightforward Roebuck Ramsden and Miss Peggy Simpson distinguishes herself Tavy's sister. The evening's pleasures are notably enhanced by \Ir. Laurence Irving's scenery, which is handsome in a very dis-
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