<b>ARMS AND THE MAN</b> Shaw Festival/Royal George Theatre SpeakupWNY | Buffalo NY and Buffalo News

Shaw Festival
Through October 18
ARMS AND THE MAN Shaw Festival/Royal George Theatre

By Augustine Warner

“Arms and the Man” is wordy, as George Bernard Shaw always is.
But, it’s tight and pointed and has one of Shaw’s greatest roles, Captain Bluntschli.
He’s the vagabond son of a Swiss hotelier who runs away from home for the third time and winds up as an officer in the Serbian army.
This was a time of surrogate Balkan wars, the Austrians backing the Serbs because the Russians are backing the Bulgarians.
Shaw had his premise before he found a real Balkans war in which the he could set his play.
It is late at night and there is still shooting going on from the great Bulgarian victory at Dragoman in 1885.
Raina Petkoff (Kate Besworth) is celebrating her fiancès role as the cavalry officer in the battle.
Shooting starts up outside her house and she finds a Serbian officer on her balcony, escaping a massacre by the victors.
Captain Bluntschli (Graeme Somerville) convinces her to hide him from the Russians.
She discovers he’s actually a Swiss and a man who likes to win wars and battles without casualties, fueled by the chocolates he carries instead of cartridges.
He says that’s what old soldiers do.
He also destroys her illusions, saying her fiancé Major Sergius Saranoff (Martin Happer) won his victory because the Serbian side sent Bluntschli’s unit the wrong ammunition.
Raina comes from the richest, most important family in Bulgaria, living in a home with two stories.
Raina and her mother (Laurie Paton) help protect Bluntschli and get him away.
This is a home with some strife and some reliables, the rascal servants, Nicola (Peter Krantz) and Louka (Claire Jullien); and, the clueless father, Major Paul Petkoff (Norman Browning).
Not knowing what’s happening, Sergius and Paul return without knowing about Raina and her “chocolate cream soldier.”
While what happened isn’t plausible, it gives Shaw a chance to get on his hobbyhorses of the evils of war, democracy and love.
Nicola will get his shop in Sofia, Sergius gets Louka and Raina gets her soldier who has become a very rich man with the death of his father.
My significant other says the only real misfire in the show is the cuckoo clock theme.
Actually, I don’t agree because I’m not a believer in the supremacy of the set, even this fine one from Ken MacDonald.
If you ever come out of a show marveling at a set, the director and the cast (and perhaps the playwright) haven’t done their jobs.
Here, director Morris Panych keeps the story moving, ensuring some of Shaw’s propaganda doesn’t block your ears.
He has a strong cast, with the wonderful performances from Somerville, Jullien and Besworth.
As usual at Shaw, the quality of the spear carriers is important, especially Happer, Krantz and Paton
Browning is marvelous in another of these blowhard roles he seems to specialize in.
What Shaw really does here is attack the idea of the military hero, a man who isn’t afraid to die.
Bluntschli is a veteran, either 14 or 15 years, a survivor of Sergius’ mad charge.
He has no illusions of the human cost of war, the dead and the wounded.
That’s why when his father dies, he is quick to turn his commission and prepare to return to the hotel business in prosperous Switzerland, with Raina.
Perhaps those anxious to see the U.S. fight with Russia over Ukraine might venture up to Niagara-on-the-Lake and listen to Shaw and Bluntschli and “Arms and the Man.”
Everyone should.