Caesar & Cleopatra (1932/3)
Shaw's ninth play, represents a watershed in his career. Shaw's Caesar was the first of his many "supermen" - people of extraordinary ability or ambition who seem marked to lead humankind to a higher plane of evolution. This Caesar is not at all like the self-serving tyrant that Shakespeare depicted in his play Julius Caesar - in fact, many critics consider this Caesar a portrait of Shaw made heroic. Similarly, this Cleopatra is very different from the one in Antony and Cleopatra : Shakespeare's Cleopatra was a mature woman whose queenly gifts were subverted by her passionate love for Antony, while Shaw's is just a slip of a girl who begins learning statecraft from the ancient world's master politician. And while the historical Cleopatra was probably 21 when she met Caesar and had a son by him, in Shaw's play there is no hint of a sexual liaison between the two. Full synopsis or Gallery.