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    Arms and the Man
    Arms and the Man
    Arms and the Man
    Audiobook1 hour

    Arms and the Man

    Written by George Bernard Shaw

    Narrated by Anne Heche and Full Cast

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    It's 1885, and Raina's bourgeois Bulgarian family is caught up in the heady patriotism of the war with Serbia. The beautiful, headstrong Raina eagerly awaits her fiancé's victorious return from battle - but instead meets a soldier who seeks asylum in her bedroom. This is one soldier who definitely prefers romance and chocolate to fear and bullets. War may be raging on the battlefield, but it's the battle of the sexes that heats up this extraordinary comedy and offers very different notions of love and war.

    An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Al Espinosa, Jeremy Sisto, Teri Garr, Anne Heche, Micahel Winters, Jason Kravits and Sarah Rafferty.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherL.A. Theatre Works
    Release dateDec 1, 2006
    ISBN9781580815345
    Author

    George Bernard Shaw

    George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin in 1856 and moved to London in 1876. He initially wrote novels then went on to achieve fame through his career as a journalist, critic and public speaker. A committed and active socialist, he was one of the leaders of the Fabian Society. He was a prolific and much lauded playwright and was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. He died in 1950.

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    Reviews for Arms and the Man

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    • 4/5
      Underrated and largely forgotten, which is a shame...
    • 4/5
      This is the only play I have read or seen by Shaw, but I must admit to enjoying it immensely. It is one of two plays I am tutoring undergraduates on this year, the other being Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, both of which are very funny, but I think Shaw takes the cake for thoughtful social commentary. Whereas Goldsmith still buys into the dominant social discourse of his times, Shaw lacerates the war-mongering ethos of his 1890's audience while retaining great dramatic and humorous momentum.The play is set during the Serbo-Bulgarian war of the 1880's, but this does not matter much to the plot. Shaw wrote the play without reference to any specific conflict; in fact, he did not even give his characters names, but filled in the blanks in the text after consulting one of his friends on recent historical conflicts. Raina Petkoff, daughter of a Bulgarian major, is betrothed to Sergius Saranoff, a rising star in the Bulgarian army and Shaw's representation of the overly-Byronic hero. When Sergius initiates a suicidal cavalry charge on the Serbian forces, he and his forces miraculously survive, as the Serbs ordered the wrong ammunition for their machine guns. The Serbs retreat through the Petkoff's home town, and one of their hired mercernaries, the Swiss officer Bluntschli, escapes by climbing the balcony to Raina's room. She manages to hide him from the advancing Bulgarian forces for reasons that are not initially clear, though an amatory grounds are hinted at. Bluntschli, who carries chocolates instead of ammunition, returns to the Petkoff's house after a peace treaty to thank Raina and to return her father's favourite coat. But Sergius and Major Petkoff also arrive, leading to intrigue and confusion...Shaw, a practicing Socialist, is often accused of writing polemics and dressing them up in plays, but that does not seem true of this play, at least. The juxtaposition of Sergius, who believes in military glory, with Bluntschli, who views war pragmatically, is interesting and well handled. I also enjoyed the way Shaw deflates romantic views of love by, for instance, exposing the hypocrisy at the heart of Sergius and Raina's relationship, which, though supposed to be predicated on the ideal of the 'higher love', actually rests on empty emotions and deceit. Shaw also has things to say about class relationships, which aligns him with Goldsmith, but as mentioned above, Shaw seems much more perceptive concerning these issues.The play is very funny, and has aged well. I look forward to reading more Shavian plays - God knows the man wrote enough of the things (more than 50!).
    • 4/5
      I love the chocolate cream soldier and I love the way he has Raina's number Why Louka wants a pig like Sergius I don't know, but it does create a certain symmetry. A lovely play.
    • 3/5
      An interesting and quirky 'love' play about the intricacies of love/war/romances and specifically the way love and relationships worked in 1885-1886 Bulgaria.

      Shaw's irony/satire of high-society and the roles of men and women (specifically men coming home from military/war engagements) and how they interacted with the "commoners" (servants). Especially in relation to love and romance.
    • 3/5
      Enjoyable read, this play has good rythm, but for me it was simply entartaining, and nothing more. Much of the wit bounces off the two most chiselled characters, the maid Louka and the Swiss soldier, but the social satire feels dated today.
    • 4/5
      War: Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be

      George Bernard Shaw was a playwright (and critic, let’s not forget) possessing penetrating insight and the ability to express himself with the driest wit imaginable. His comedies often are riotous flurries of sharp dialogue, almost too much and too fast to fully comprehend at first hearing. Which makes the printed play an asset either before or after seeing a play like Arms and the Man. If you have the druthers, see it first, if you can, and follow up by reading it.

      In Arms and the Man, Shaw satirizes war; that is the glory we attribute to it and the men who engage in the fighting. Though more than a hundred years old, it’s really a play for our times, when it feels as if we Americans are fetishizing the military (i.e., the flag protests about the protests, and the like).

      Shaw sets the action near the end of the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885 (actually November 14 to November 28, a short affair indeed, which might be why he chose it). The play opens with young Bulgarian Raina Petkoff gushing over the excitement and drama of war, and in particular the reported heroic calvary charge led by her fiancé, Sergius Saranoff. Suddenly, the war comes to her doorstep in the form of the fleeing Swiss mercenary (on the Serb side) Captain Bluntschli. Much witty exchange ensues in which Bluntschli disabuses Raina of her notions of glamor and informs her that Saranoff’s charge was an act of supreme foolhardiness; that the Serbs had no ammo at hand saved him and his men. Eventually, Raina and her mother hide and then spirit Bluntschli out to safety. Her father and Saranoff return and in addition to being quite idiotic, Saranoff proves to be a strutting popinjay of a man. Soon Raina and Saranoff become disenchanted with each other. Saranoff finds the very saucy servant girl more to his liking, while Raina finds herself drawn to her “chocolate-cream soldier.” All’s well that ends well, but not before both war and the fickle nature of human romance gets thoroughly skewered.

      This was Shaw’s first big success and he was present on opening night. Called onto the stage, he received the praise of the audience and, reportedly, the boos of one heckler. Shaw’s reported to have remarked to the man, "My dear fellow, I quite agree with you, but what are we two against so many?" And, apparently, Shaw wasn’t kidding, as he felt himself reduced to a writer of sparkling trifles.