Calling Man and Superman "Shaw's great treatise on sex, morality, and the war between men and women," Kramer offers a positive review of a 1988 revival of the play, though she expresses reservations about the lead actors essaying Jack and Ann.
The heroine of "Man and Superman," Ann Whitefield, is one of Shaw's strong-minded women. Like Candida, Barbara Undershaft, and Vivie Warren, she knows the world and what she wants out of life. But Ann isn't as immediately likable as Candida, Barbara, and Vivie; she lacks their forth-rightness and their gift for argument. Where Barbara and Candida can hold their own with fathers, suitors, and husbands, Ann comments on speech instead of engaging in it, and she manages people— particularly men—instead of trying to reason with them. She's forever getting caught out in some manipulative.....
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