Rating: 
Summary: Like the chocolate cream soldier - tasty and satisfying
Review: A starving, exhausted soldier running for his life bursts into a young woman's room, finds outrage, criticism, solace, chocolate creams, and unexpected love -and that's just the opening scene. This clever, witty, subtle, and surprising treat from the author of Pygmalion still holds up well more than 100 years after its writing. Shaw fashions the subjects of false ideals, heroism, romanticism, and the fake glories of war into a well-constructed farce which sustains through the very last line. Can't wait to see a new production of the play, and a great read meanwhile....
Rating:
Summary: Like the chocolate cream soldier - tasty and satisfying
Review: A starving, exhausted soldier running for his life bursts into a young woman's room, finds outrage, criticism, solace, chocolate creams, and unexpected love -and that's just the opening scene. This clever, witty, subtle, and surprising treat from the author of Pygmalion still holds up well more than 100 years after its writing. Shaw fashions the subjects of false ideals, heroism, romanticism, and the fake glories of war into a well-constructed farce which sustains through the very last line. Can't wait to see a new production of the play, and a great read meanwhile....
Rating:
Summary: Arms and the Man
Review: Another of Shaw's great masterpieces. To fully understand this play, you should have a basic understanding of Fabian Socialism and the conditions under which Shaw was writing. A very important play of his era and one which still speaks volumes about society today.
Rating: 
Summary: George Bernard Shaw and "Arms"
Review: 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: 
Summary: A Comic Opera Wrapped with Unexpected Ideas
Review: 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:
Summary: A Comic Opera Wrapped with Unexpected Ideas
Review: 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:
Summary: An early social comedy by Shaw on the horrors of war
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: An early social comedy by Shaw on the horrors of war
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Too much social 'comment', not enough comedy.
Review: Shaw, who more than any of his contemporaries dealt provocatively with the crucial issues of his day, has not worn well. In a 1971 encyclopaedia I had as a child, the entry on GBS called him the greatest dramatist since Shakespeare. That's better than Moliere, Sheridan, Strindberg, Ibsen, Wilde, Jarry, Chekhov, Brecht, Ionesco, Beckett! Such a laughable proposition is untenable today, and we can now see Shaw for what he is - a superficially amusing farceur, who squandered this modest gift on deadly social comment, deadly because he reduced issues that effected real people to theorems, and reduced those people to mere mouthpieces. There is no subtext in Shaw - everything is expounded tediously and teeth-grindingly on the surface. ARMS AND THE MAN is one of his better efforts, and, after an uncertain start, settles into some nice old-style farce - hidden identities, buffoonish heroes, scheming servants, crusty old majors; when, though, the puppets start lecturing us on war, idealism, class, gender etc., one's heart sinks, not because what Shaw says isn't true, but because a letter to the Times would have been a better place to say it. While Wilde's plays grow with the years, seeming richer, more meaningful, brutally satiric, bursting with complex and fluid themes, Shaw's work, in their steadfast refusal of mystery and ambiguity, seem chilly and remote.
Rating:
Summary: Too much social 'comment', not enough comedy.
Review: Shaw, who more than any of his contemporaries dealt provocatively with the crucial issues of his day, has not worn well. In a 1971 encyclopaedia I had as a child, the entry on GBS called him the greatest dramatist since Shakespeare. That's better than Moliere, Sheridan, Strindberg, Ibsen, Wilde, Jarry, Chekhov, Brecht, Ionesco, Beckett! Such a laughable proposition is untenable today, and we can now see Shaw for what he is - a superficially amusing farceur, who squandered this modest gift on deadly social comment, deadly because he reduced issues that effected real people to theorems, and reduced those people to mere mouthpieces. There is no subtext in Shaw - everything is expounded tediously and teeth-grindingly on the surface. ARMS AND THE MAN is one of his better efforts, and, after an uncertain start, settles into some nice old-style farce - hidden identities, buffoonish heroes, scheming servants, crusty old majors; when, though, the puppets start lecturing us on war, idealism, class, gender etc., one's heart sinks, not because what Shaw says isn't true, but because a letter to the Times would have been a better place to say it. While Wilde's plays grow with the years, seeming richer, more meaningful, brutally satiric, bursting with complex and fluid themes, Shaw's work, in their steadfast refusal of mystery and ambiguity, seem chilly and remote.
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