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Title: Arms and the Man (Dover Thrift Editions) by George Bernard Shaw ISBN: 0-486-26476-9 Publisher: Dover Publications Pub. Date: 01 August, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $2.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.75 (8 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A Comic Opera Wrapped with Unexpected Ideas
Comment: First staged in 1894, ARMS AND THE MAN might best described as a comic opera without music. The story concerns Raina Petkoff, a young woman given to melodramatic displays of emotion who has recently seen both her husband and her would-be husband off to war. She is most disconcerted to find an enemy solider hiding in her bedroom following a decisive battle--but fancying herself in the role of romantic heroine, she elects to help him escape. Trouble is, he comes back.
This is in some ways among the least of Shaw's work. Still, the nonesensical situations, witty dialogue, and delicious ironies of the situation make for a memorable package, a package which Shaw ties up in ribbons of ideas about the illusions of romance, the realities of love, and the practicalities of war and peace. The result is a delightful confection with unexpected depth, and the combination has caused ARMS AND THE MAN to be among Shaw's most often revived works. Not among Shaw's great masterpieces, but worthy reading all the same.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Rating: 2
Summary: George Bernard Shaw and "Arms"
Comment: Community Playhouse in Long Beach did the show this August. As it played, the plot didn't come through, but the wit of Shaw did. The playhouse didn't have the costumes of the military men, nor the actors to carry-off the pomp and bravado of these would-be heroes. In a time when G.W. Bush is fighting his own phantasmic enemies this play should have lapooned the whole spectre of military madness. George Bernard Shaw gave us the theme it will take some imagination and talent to make it contemporary and equal to the madness of our times. Anon
Rating: 4
Summary: An early social comedy by Shaw on the horrors of war
Comment: George Bernard Shaw takes the title for this play from the opening life of Virgil's epic poem the "Aeneid," which begins "Of arms and the man I sing." Virgil glorified war and the heroic feats of Aeneas on the battlefield. However, Shaw's purpose in this play is to attack the romantic notion of war by presenting a more realistic depiction of war, devoid of the idea that such death and destruction speaks to nobility. Still, "Arms and the Man" is not an anti-war drama, but rather a satirical assault on those who would glorify the horrors or war.
Shaw develops an ironic contrast between two central characters. The play begins with accounts of the glorious exploits of Major Sergius Saranoff, a handsome young Bulgarian officer, in a daring cavalry raid, which turned the war in favor of the Bulgarians over the Serbs. In contrast, Captain Bluntschil, a professional soldier from Switzerland, acts like a coward. He climbs up to a balcony to escape capture, he threatens a woman with a gun, and he carries chocolates rather than cartridges because he claims the sweets are more useful on the battlefield.
In the eyes of Raina Petkoff, the young romantic idealist who has bought into the stories of battlefield heroism, Saranoff is her ideal hero. However, as the play proceeds, we learn more about this raid and that despite its success, it was a suicidal gesture that should have failed. Eventually Saranoff is going to end up dead if he continues to engage in such ridiculous heroics. Meanwhile, we realize that Bluntshcil has no misconceptions about the stupidity of war and that his actions have kept him alive.
"Arms and the Man" is an early play by Shaw, first performed in 1894, the same year he wrote "Mrs. Warren's Profession." The ending is rather tradition for comedies of the time, with all the confusion between the lovers finally getting cleared up and everybody paired up to live happily ever after. The choice of a young woman as the main character, who ultimately rejects her romantic ideals to live in the real world, is perhaps significant because serving in the army and going to war is not going to happen. Consequently, her views are not going to be colored by questions of courage in terms of going to war herself. I also find it interesting that this play understands the horrors of war given that it was the horrors of World War I that generally killed the romantic notion of war in Britain.
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Title: The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht ISBN: 1559702532 Publisher: Arcade Publishing Pub. Date: 01 August, 1994 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: Barber of Seville and the Marriage of Figaro (Classics S.) by Pierre de Beaumarchais, John Wood ISBN: 0140441336 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1964 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Joseph Andrews (Dover Thrift Editions) by Henry Fielding ISBN: 0486415880 Publisher: Dover Publications Pub. Date: 01 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $3.00 |
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Title: The Importance of Being Earnest (Dover Thrift Editions) by Oscar Wilde ISBN: 0486264785 Publisher: Dover Publications Pub. Date: 01 July, 1990 List Price(USD): $1.00 |
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Title: Roosters. by Milcha Sanchez-Scott ISBN: 0822209659 Publisher: Dramatists Play Service Inc Pub. Date: January, 1998 List Price(USD): $6.50 |
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