Man and Superman, Ralph Fiennes at The National

 

Ralph Fiennes in Shaw's Man and Superman at The National . An extreme feat of memory recall from Ralph Fiennes. Sounds crazy, but the serious amount of actual words in this play, for mere mortals, the man deserves an award.

Now to the actual play.  Mr. Whitefield has recently died, and his will indicates that his daughter, Ann(Indira Varma), should be left in the care of two men, Roebuck Ramsden and Jack Tanner (Ralph Fiennes). Ramsden, a venerable old man, distrusts Jack Tanner, an eloquent man with revolutionary ideas.  In spite of what Ramsden says, Ann accepts Tanner as a guardian, and she defies Tanner's revolutionary beliefs with her own beliefs. Tanner's dedication to anarchy is unable to disarm Ann's charm, and she ultimately persuades him to marry her. Eventually, Ann chooses Tanner over her more persistent suitor, a young man named Octavius Robinson.

The philosophical monologues from Tanner come thick and fast and honestly, I felt like a pause button would have been helpful, just to process some of the ideas being touted.

Additionally, this production has included the controversial dream sequence. I discover, after some research that this section involves characters from the story of Don Juan (apparently an ancestor of Tanner), doubled up by the actors in the main play. And so begins a LENGTHY philosophical debate about the "rudderless" existence in Hell versus the "someone at the helm" experience in Heaven. I would say that this whole section should not be included in the production as it's irrelevant to the plot. However, this would be to miss out on the glorious experience of watching Tim McMullen having the most fun playing The Devil.  Also, the performance I saw had the added bonus of a technical hitch, whereupon the character of the angel who was supposed to appear from above the stage had to  walk on stage instead. This gave Tim McMullan the opportunity to adlib fabulously as he emerged on stage from a hole opened up from the stage floor, commenting  that there were "no such problems coming from down below!"

Indira Varma as Ann, was a subtle performance but could have been minxier I felt.
So at a performance time of 3hours 40 minutes (with interval), as a member of the audience, it would have benefitted from being at least 40 minutes shorter. Lastly, I loved the stage setting and design, finding it very  imaginative.