Arms and the Man: an (Anti)Romantic Comedy
Article by Kristen Schweizer
“What Instagram filter should I use?” It’s a common question. The Instagram filter – albeit less popular than when the Instagram app was created a few short years ago – is a chance to make a normal, human moment look larger than life. The blues in Hudson make your breakfast seem calmer, while Lo-Fi is better for bright-colored cocktails. Regardless of the filter, the point is to look as perfect as possible.
The world of gauzy stories is the world of Raina Petkoff (talented Wrenn Schmidt), the silly heroine of George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man, now playing at The Old Globe. At the beginning of the show, Raina has it all – she is young and beautiful, from the richest family in the region, and has just she received a report that her soldier fiancé has led a successful battle charge, solidifying peace in the region, and is returning home. It is strange to start a play at what would regularly be considered the “end” of a great story – but therein lies the genius of George Bernard Shaw.
Shaw called the play “Arms and the Man: the anti-comedic comedy in three acts.” The famous playwright is equally cynical as he is witty – and, of course, he has some things to say about the world’s ballooning romanticizing of romance. The beguiling Raina is interrupted during her poetic raptures to her heroic soldier when an enemy soldier (flawless Zach Appleman) bursts in to her bedroom, on the run from the very battle Raina’s fiancé just won! Does she save his life? Does she turn him in? To Raina, the question is not “which is right?” but instead “which is more poetic?”
Director Jessica Stone dazzled audiences with her Globe debut last season (Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike), and her thorough stage direction does not disappoint in Arms and the Man. The subtle wit of exchanges – whether blithely dismissing the exceptional, added village musician (earnest Ernest Sauceda), or enjoying the heroic’s Saranoff’s (energetic Enver Gjokaj) somehow-never-gets-old soldierly prancing. Her ensemble cast stage pictures are attractive without being distracting, and damn she knows how to tell a joke. You will not stop laughing through the second two acts, and you’ll fall in love with love even when the playwright is asking you not to.
The standout performances of Zach Appleman and Enver Gjokaj are flawless. Both are masters at physical comedy, enjoying the full stage to tell the story without ever seeming flighty. Appleman, as Captain Bluntschli, is the “cynic” of the show. A professional soldier, he has no pretension or notions of his position in the world. The clash of his “straight man” juxtaposition to Raina’s petty fantasies holds up a new kind of mirror that no one has forced her to look in to, yet he does it with the affable, disarming kindness of a guy who also knows how to tell a joke. The levels placed on what many would consider a “light” role solidifies his and Stone’s excellence. Likewise, Gjokaj as Major Serguis Saranoff is the silliest, prancing in a fur-lined soldier’s jacket the entire show, repeating his shouted refusals to ever withdraw, pull out (hmm), surrender, or apologize – but Gjokaj is still human. Humanity is in his eyes, in his pauses of uncertainty. In a play full of characters rather than caricatures, it is difficult to believe this is Stone’s first play by Shaw.
Set designer Ralph Funicello can do no wrong, as usual. His sets were romance paintings of the era, they felt like sets – but in a way that reminded the audience what they were seeing, ensuring we not get so lost in the story and heard the message.
The costumes – OH THE COSTUMES – where to even start!? David Israel Reynosa’s work are possibly the best costumes yet to grace any San Diego stage so far this year. There are scads of stunning gowns and fitted soldier jackets to be thrown around if that award actually existed – San Diego Opera’s Don Giovanni is proof of that – but what sets Reynosa’s work is his absolute grasp of the text. The clothing told a story. The colors were comedic without forced gaiety, the cuts and construction was flattering in all the right places, but more than just beautiful; the clothing was an integral part of the storytelling.
You won’t want to miss a detail, so procure the best seats you can find before it closes on June 14. The Old Globe has staged Shaw beautifully many times over the years, but in a world of Instagram-perfect home décor and Photoshopped celebrity couples, Arms and the Man remains a contemporary and pointed reminder everything shallow is…exactly that.
