Arms and the Man

This article is about the play by George Bernard Shaw. For other uses, see Arms and the Man (disambiguation).

Arms and the Man
Shaw at the time of the production of Arms and the Man
Written by	George Bernard Shaw
Characters	Raina Petkoff Sergius Saranoff Captain Bluntschli Catherine Petkoff Major Paul Petkoff Louka Nicola
Date premiered	21 April 1894 (1894-04-21)
Place premiered	Avenue Theatre
Subject	Love and war

Arms and the Man is a comedy by George Bernard Shaw, whose title comes from the opening words of Virgil's Aeneid, in Latin: Arma virumque cano ("Of arms and the man I sing").

The play was first produced on 21 April 1894 at the Avenue Theatre and published in 1898 as part of Shaw's Plays Pleasant volume, which also included Candida, You Never Can Tell, and The Man of Destiny. Arms and the Man was one of Shaw's first commercial successes. He was called on to stage after the curtain, where he received enthusiastic applause. Amidst the cheers, one audience member booed. Shaw riposted, "My dear fellow, I quite agree with you, but what are we two against so many?"

Arms and the Man humorously exposes the futility of war and the hypocrisies of human nature.

Plot summary

Production photograph of Florence Farr portraying Louka in Arms and the Man, 1894

Actors of the Smith College Club of St. Louis are sketched rehearsing for an all-woman amateur benefit performance of George Bernard Shaw's "Arms and the Man" in December 1908. No men were allowed in the rehearsals or at the performance. The illustration is by Marguerite Martyn of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The play takes place during the 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian War. Its heroine, Raina Petkoff, is a young Bulgarian woman engaged to Sergius Saranoff, a battlefield hero whom she idolizes. On the night after the Battle of Slivnitza, Captain Bluntschli, a Swiss mercenary in the defeated Serbian army, climbs in through her bedroom balcony and threatens her not to give the alarm. When Russian and Bulgarian troops burst in to search for him, Raina hides him. He tells her that "nine soldiers out of ten are born fools" led to slaughter by heroic fantasies. Bluntschli's businesslike attitude to war shocks the idealistic Raina, especially after he admits that he uses his ammunition pouches to carry chocolates rather than pistol cartridges. When the search dies down, Raina and her mother Catherine sneak him out of the house, disguised in one of Raina's father's old coats.

The war ends and Raina's father, Major Paul Petkoff, returns home with Sergius. Raina begins to find Sergius bombastic and tiresome, but she hides it. Sergius also finds Raina's romantic ideals tiresome, and flirts with Raina's insolent servant girl Louka (a soubrette role), who is engaged to the Petkoffs' manservant Nicola. Bluntschli unexpectedly returns to give back the old coat, but also to see Raina. Raina and her mother are shocked when Major Petkoff and Sergius reveal that they have met Bluntschli before and invite him to lunch (and to help them figure out how to send the troops home).

Left alone with Bluntschli, Raina realizes that though he sees through her romanticism, he respects her, as Sergius does not. She reveals that she left a photograph of herself in a pocket of the coat, inscribed "To my chocolate-cream soldier", but Bluntschli says he did not find it, and it must still be in the coat. Bluntschli gets a telegram informing him of his father's death: he must now take over the family's luxury hotels in Switzerland.

Louka gossips to Sergius that Raina had protected Bluntschli and is in love with him. Sergius challenges Bluntschli to a duel, but Bluntschli evades it. Sergius and Raina break off their engagement, with some relief on both sides. Major Petkoff discovers the photograph in the pocket of his old coat; Raina and Bluntschli try to dispose of it, but Petkoff is determined to learn the truth and claims that the "chocolate-cream soldier" is Sergius. After Bluntschli confesses the whole story to Major Petkoff, Sergius proposes marriage to Louka (to Major Petkoff and Catherine's horror); the manservant Nicola quietly and gallantly lets Sergius have her; and Bluntschli, recognising Nicola's merits, offers him a job as hotel manager.

While Raina is now unattached, Bluntschli protests that—being 34 and believing she is 17—he is too old for her. On learning that she is actually 23, he immediately proposes and shows her the telegram announcing his inheritance. Raina, realizing the hollowness of her romantic ideals, protests that she would prefer him as a poor "chocolate-cream soldier" than as a wealthy businessman. Bluntschli protests that he is still the same person, and she proclaims her love for him. The play ends as Bluntschli, with Swiss precision, arranges the major's troop movements and informs them he will return to marry Raina in exactly two weeks.

Reception

George Orwell said that Arms and the Man was written when Shaw was at the height of his powers as a dramatist. "It is probably the wittiest play he ever wrote, the most flawless technically, and in spite of being a very light comedy, the most telling." His other plays of the period, equally well written, were about issues that, according to Orwell, were no longer controversial at the time Orwell was writing. For example, the theme of Mrs. Warren's Profession, which so shocked audiences at the time, was that the causes of prostitution are mainly economic, which was already a common opinion in Orwell's time, and the play Widowers' Houses was an attack on slum landlords, who had since become stock villains.

In 2024, an attempt to stage John Malkovich's production of the play at Ivan Vazov National Theatre of Bulgaria was targeted by nationalist protesters that considered it a calumny of Bulgaria. The mob surrounded the theatre, threw smoke bombs, prevented the visitors that had bought tickets from entering the theatre hall, accusing them of being traitors and threatening them, and physically assaulted the director of the play and the director of the theatre.

Subsequent productions

Flyer for Birmingham Open Air Theatre, 1941, with plays including Arms and the Man performed in municipal parks during World War II.

• The first Broadway production opened on 17 September 1894 at New York City's Herald Square Theatre. Since then there have been six Broadway revivals, two of which are listed below.
• The most prestigious London revival was directed by John Burrell for The Old Vic Company at the New Theatre, which opened on 5 September 1944, starring Ralph Richardson (Bluntschli), Margaret Leighton (Raina Petkoff), Joyce Redman (Louka), and Laurence Olivier (Major Sergius Saranoff). "Olivier thought Sergius a humbug, a buffoon, a blackguard, a coward, 'a bloody awful part' until Tyrone Guthrie said he would never succeed in the role until he learned to love Sergius. Olivier, spurred and moustachioed, was high camp": Robert Tanitch.
• A revival production ran at New York City's Arena Theatre from 19 October 1950 to 21 January 1951, for a total of 108 performances. The cast included Lee Grant as Raina, Francis Lederer as Bluntschli and Sam Wanamaker as Sergius.
• Marlon Brando's final stage appearance was in Arms and the Man in 1953. He gathered friends who were fellow actors into a company for a summer stock production. He chose to play Sergius while William Redfield starred as Bluntschli. The show was produced on the college circuit as well in the 1950s.
• Carroll Baker, following her enormous success in Baby Doll, toured in the play in the summer of 1957.
• The play was produced in 1982 at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, with Brian Bedford as Bluntschli and Len Cariou as Sergius.
• The Studio Arena Theater in Buffalo, New York, put on a production of Arms and the Man in 1983 with Kelsey Grammer as Sergius.
• A Channel 4 television production in 1983 starring Richard Briers as Captain Bluntschli, Peter Egan as Major Sergius Saranoff, Alice Krige as Raina and Anna Nygh as Louka.
• In 1985 John Malkovich directed a revival production at New York City's Circle in the Square Theatre starring Kevin Kline as Bluntschli (later replaced by Malkovich after Kline's departure), Glenne Headly as Raina and Raul Julia as Sergius. The production ran from 30 May to 1 September 1985, for a total of 109 performances.
• The BBC produced a second made-for-TV version in 1989, directed by James Cellan Jones, starring Helena Bonham Carter as Raina, Pip Torrens as Bluntschli, Patrick Ryecart as Sergius and Patsy Kensit as Louka.
• The 1991 production by Channel Theatre Company opened the Malvern Festival before touring the UK. Directed by Philip Dart it featured Sebastian Abineri, Steven Pinner, Juliette Kaplan, Charles Stapley, Mary Woodvine, Andrew Wheaton, Susan Gott and Colin Atkins.
• In 2011 the play was presented by the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota; The Seattle Public Theater; and the Constellation Theatre Company in Washington, D.C.
• In the summer of 2013, Odyssey Theatre in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada performed a masked performance of this play.
• The Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, has performed the play a number of times: in 1967, 1976, 1986, 1994, 2006 and 2014, the last directed by Morris Panych.
• The play opened at the American Shakespeare Center's Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Virginia, on 29 April 2016 and ran until 11 June.
• In 2023, the play is produced Off-Broadway in New York City at Theatre Row, by Gingold Theatrical Group, and directed by David Staller.

Adaptations

The scene in The Chocolate Soldier in which Bumerli (the equivalent of Bluntschli) enters the bedroom of Nadina (the equivalent of Raina), in a 1910 London production

• Shaw gave Leopold Jacobson the rights to adapt the play into what became the operetta The Chocolate Soldier (1908) with music by Oscar Straus, but under three conditions: none of Shaw's dialogue or character names could be used, the musical version must be advertised as a parody of Shaw's play, and Shaw would accept no payment. Nonetheless, the operetta kept Shaw's original plot and central message. Shaw despised the result, calling it "a putrid opéra bouffe in the worst taste of 1860", but grew to regret not accepting payment when, despite his opinion, it became a lucrative international success.
• When Shaw heard, in 1921, that Franz Lehár wanted to set his play Pygmalion to music, he sent word to Vienna that Lehár be instructed that he could not touch Pygmalion without infringing Shaw's copyright and that Shaw had "no intention of allowing the history of The Chocolate Soldier to be repeated." Only after Shaw's death was Pygmalion eventually adapted by Lerner and Loewe as My Fair Lady (1956).
• A 1932 British film adaptation (now believed lost) was directed by Cecil Lewis. It starred Barry Jones as Bluntschli and Anne Grey as Raina.
• A filmed version of Arms and the Man in German entitled Helden (Heroes) starring O. W. Fischer and Liselotte Pulver was runner up for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1958.
• An audio version was produced by the BBC in 1975 starring Ralph Richardson as Captain Bluntschli, John Gielgud as Major Sergius Saranoff, Vanessa Redgrave as Raina and Judi Dench as Louka.
• A second BBC radio production was produced in 1984 and broadcast on BBC Radio 7 in February 2009 starring Andrew Sachs as Captain Bluntschli, Jackie Smith-Wood as Raina and Gary Bond as Major Saranoff.
• A third BBC Radio production was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 21 March 2010 starring Rory Kinnear as Captain Bluntschli, Lydia Leonard as Raina and Tom Mison as Major Saranoff. This production was produced by Nicolas Soames and directed by David Timson.
• An audio version was produced in 1999 by the CBC starring Simon Bradbury as Captain Bluntschli, Elizabeth Brown as Raina and Andrew Gillies as Major Saranoff.
• Another audio version was produced in 2006 by the L.A. Theatre Works starring Jeremy Sisto as Captain Bluntschli, Anne Heche as Raina and Teri Garr as Catherine.
• A musical by Udo Jürgens, Helden, Helden, also based on Shaw's play, premiered at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, Austria in 1973.

Pejorative military use of "chocolate soldier"

The chocolate-cream soldier of the play has inspired a pejorative military use of the term. Israeli soldiers use the term "chocolate soldier" (hayal shel shokolad, חייל של שוקולד) to disparage a soldier not tough enough to fight. The Australian Citizens Military Force were derided by the regular army as "chokos" or chocolate soldiers, implying they were not real soldiers.

External links

• Arms and the Man at Standard Ebooks
• The script of Arms and the Man at Project Gutenberg
• Arms and the Man public domain audiobook at LibriVox
• ​Arms and the Man​ at the Internet Broadway Database
• Internet Movie Database entry for Arms and the Man
• McNabb, Jim. "Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw : Study Guide" (PDF). Ottawa: National Arts Centre. Retrieved 12 April 2011.
• Smith, Nicole. "Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw : Class and Social Critique in the Play". Archived from the original on 7 July 2011. Retrieved 12 April 2011.