ARMS AND THE MAN. To 11 March.
Salisbury/Guildford/Windsor
ARMS AND THE MAN
by George Bernard Shaw
Salisbury Playhouse, To 25 February 2006 then Guildford & Windsor (details below)
Mons-Weds 7.30 p.m. Thur-Sats 8.00 p.m. Mat Mat Thu & Sat 2.30pm
Audio-dewscribed 23 March 2.30pm & 8pm
Runs 2 hours 5 minutes One Interval
TICKETS: 01722 320333
www.salisburyplayhouse.com
Review Mark Courtice: 18 February 2006
Shaw needs doughtier defenders than this.
The National, and indeed most of English theatre, has appeared to make a point of ignoring Bernard Shaw, even in this his centenary year. It has fallen to Peter Hall to bring You Never Can Tell from Bath, via a tour to the West End, and Salisbury to do the honours.
Arms and the Man challenges notions of heroism and true love, ruthlessly revealing the bogus by contrasting Major Sergius Saranoff and Captain Bluntschli. The former cannot organise the basics of soldiering; the latter can, but owns up to the fear and misery of war and keeps food in his ammunition pouch. It is the peacock Sergius whom Raina expects to marry, but the Captain with whom she falls in love after he has burst in through her bedroom window.
Even in works like this, that he described as 'Plays Pleasant', Shaw's work is infused with moral purpose and political vigour. His other great strength was the sense of fun and sardonic wit that made the delivery of all this purpose entertaining.
In this fantasy the characters are larger than life, they are often not what they seem and even at their most deceitful they are also strangely beguiling. This needs confident playing, iron-handed control of timing and tone, and dramatic coherence.
Here, all this is missing. An example is a core scene when Raina and Sergius declare their "higher love". It is a crescendo of false emotion, written for bursting, overblown energy and bombast, made all the more ludicrous when Sergius turns immediately from his "lady and saint" to flirt with Louka, the servant girl. Here it was strangely tentative, so it was hard to tell how we should take it, and timing was out so the contrast went for nothing.
Janet Bird' set gave us a bourgeois Serbian home (complete with 5-volume library) in an icing sugar-like Balkan mountain range, with a sky like a lace tablecloth. Under dull lighting Christopher Luscombe's production made little use of this witty response, lining actors up in rows and giving us little to look at.
Raina Petkoff: Olivia Darnley
Catherine: Helen Cartwright
Louka: Lisa Diveney
Captain Bluntschli: Guy Lankester
Major Plechanoff: Mark Godfrey
Nicola: Col Farrell
Major Sergius Saranoff: Damian Kell
Director: Christopher Luscombe
Designer: Janet Bird
Lighting: Peter Hunter
Sound: Kevin Scott
2006-02-23 00:20:47