Arms and the Man

What happens when a young woman's romantic fantasy of war meets the messy reality? Shaw's 1894 comedy takes that question and explodes it into something fiercely funny. Raina Petkoff has built her life around idealized visions of heroism, particularly those embodied by her fiancé Major Sergius, a celebrated Bulgarian war hero. Then, during the Balkan War, a bedraggled Servian officer literally falls through her bedroom window, and he's nothing like the gallant knights of her imagination. Bluntschli is practical, self-aware, and carries chocolate in his pack instead of extra bullets. He jokes about the absurdity of war, the performance of bravery, the lies women tell themselves about glory. Raina must choose between her comfortable illusions and an uncomfortable truth. The result is a play that refuses to let either romance or militarism off the hook. More than a century later, Shaw's wit still cuts. He understood that heroism and hypocrisy often wear the same face, and he wrote a comedy that lets you see both at once.