William, the waiter, is one of Shaw’s most delightful characters. He is, in truth, the chorus to the drama, and a man of deep philosophies. To everyone’s consternation it is discovered that the eminent Mr. Bohun, Q. C., who is called in as legal adviser to the Clandon-Cramptons is William’s son.
“I’ve often wished he was a potman,” he says. “Would have had him off my hands ever so much sooner, sir. Yes, sir, had to support him until he was thirty-seven, sir....”
William reads Schopenhauer, but he has no intellectual yearnings.
“My name is Boon, sir,” he says, “though I am best known down here as Balmy Walters, sir. By rights I should spell it with the aitch you, sir, but I think it best not to take that liberty, sir. There is Norman blood in it, sir, and Norman blood is not a recommendation to a waiter.”
Bohun, the son, is a blustering, roaring legal whale of the low comedy type. The last act of the play is made a screaming farce by his elephantine efforts to smooth out the family tangles of the Clandon-Cramptons. In the end he reaches a decision worthy of Solomon.
“You can do nothing,” he says to Crampton, “but make a friendly arrangement. If you want your family more than they want you, you’ll get the worst of the arrangement; if they want you more than you want them, you’ll get the better of it. The strength of their position lies in their being very agreeable personally. The strength of your position lies in your income....”
And that is the nearest approach to a solution of the difficulty that the play offers.
“MAN AND SUPERMAN”
Measured with rule, plumb-line or hay-scales, “Man and Superman” is easily Shaw’s magnum opus. In bulk it is brobdignagian; in scope it is stupendous; in purpose it is one with the Odyssey. Like a full-rigged ship before a spanking breeze, it cleaves deep into the waves, sending ripples far to port and starboard, and its giant canvases rise half way to the clouds, with resplendent jibs, sky-sails, staysails and studdingsails standing out like quills upon the fretful porcupine. It has a preface as long as a campaign speech; an interlude in three scenes, with music and red fire; and a complete digest of the German philosophers as an appendix. With all its rings and satellites it fills a tome of 281 closely-printed pages. Its epigrams, quips, jests, and quirks are multitudinous; it preaches treason to all the schools; its hero has one speech of 350 words. No one but a circus press agent could rise to an adequate description of its innumerable marvels. It is a three-ring circus, with Ibsen doing running high jumps; Schopenhauer playing the calliope and Nietzsche selling peanuts in the reserved seats. And all the while it is the most entertaining play of its generation.