Take one rather windy, over-long play that has plenty of Ideas, sit on it, heavily to press out the depth, cut it to a sensible length, then polish so it glistens, and you have the current product at the Shubert. The process transforms a dramatic treatise in philosophy into a funny but two-dimensional play, perhaps the best that can be done with. "Man and Superman," which is, after all, something to be read rather than seen. Shaw's rebellious witticisms are served up in the elegant, stylized manner that Gielgud brought to perfection in "The Importance of Being Earnest," and if the audience is delighted, it may also be disappointed in getting this and nothing more from the Master.

The character of the modern Don Juan, who is unable to live up to his paradoxically ascetic ideals, has been vulgarized nobly by Maurice Evans. Instead he shows a comically flat and self-conscious hero, who completely lacks the real pathos of the Shavian creation. Emoting in the worst Shakespearean tradition, Evans draws plenty of laughs, and provides adequate surface entertainment; again a more solid treatment is called for. But Frances Rowe as the unscrupulous female, who pursues him to eventual triumph, is superb. Alternately voluptuous and indignant, she glides through her tasty part with complete competence, while the other players fit themselves into their entertaining roles with the necessary attention to proportion and restraint.

Once one can get over the disappointment of seeing Shaw being made nearly as glossy and empty as Wilde, one can perhaps settle down and enjoy this one in terms of the present production. And it is an altogether delightful one: it has been paced so as to keep the audience laughing most of the time, and in this Evans, has been supremely successful. The dream scene in which the original Don Juan appears and brings out the philosophical content of the play in a long discussion with the Devil, the Commendatore, and Donna Ana, has been cut. In the light of the Evans interpretation of the play, that is all that can be done. The scene is only occasionally funny and hardly dramatic.

Nevertheless, this constant attempt to smooth away a rough, wholesome play cannot be completely successful. Where the treatment of "Earnest" was natural and right, in "Man and Superman" it is artificial, and when the power of Shaw's ideas does break through, both the cast and the audience are left both embarrassed and helpless. But after a painful farewell to George Bernard Shaw, one can trot down to the Shubert and be amused.