George Bernard Shaw’s glistening wit, which should be on crystal display in his 1894 comedy of bourgeois manners, Arms and the Man, turns a bit opaque in the opening production of Classical Theatre’s 2026-27 season. The patented Shavian polemical humor goes blunt under the rom-com staging that aims for the easy laugh through obviousness and over-played caricature instead of character. It’s all a bit much for Shaw’s “pleasant play” to handle.
We’re at the very end of the short-lived 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian war. Into the bedroom of Raina, the young ultra-romantic Petkoff daughter, scrambles Bluntschli, a Swiss mercenary fighting for the enemy Serbs. Raina hides him, dubbing him her “chocolate cream soldier,” although she is engaged to the dashing local hero Major Sergius Saranoff.
The two opposites clash but the spark between them is evident. After numerous comic misunderstandings, expertly etched by Shaw with his fine command of how to write an unconventional ironic comedy, war and its idolaters are mocked and put in their place, love-sick idealists who value style over substance see the light, and upper middle-class pretensions are pricked until they burst.
But Classical overlays Shaw’s subtleties by being too out-there, too often. Sergius is a pompous prig and egomaniac, but must every line delivery be expressed by a cape flourish or leg up on a chair? Gabriel Mullen looks the part perfectly, but he’s directed to preen and pose as if for an oil painting. Rodrick Randall, as clueless Major Petkoff, makes most of his bumble-headedness, but he’s straight out of a comic opera.
Kregg Dailey, as put-upon servant Nicola, is fun to watch, as usual, and knows what he’s doing, but his talent is wasted in this small part; and Bethany Nicole Muir, as saucy maid Louka – isn’t there always a saucy maid in English comedy? – who considers herself better than her betters, is pure Shaw taking a swipe at the hierarchy between the haves and have-nots. She could stand a little more controlled condescension.
Elissa Cuellar, who looks superb in Jodie A. Daniels’ late Victorian peignoir or day outfits, starts out at a very high level that borders on antique dramaturgy. Yes, Raina is melodramatic in the extreme as she fantasizes over the glories her betrothed will garner in war and how splendid he looks in his photograph by her bedside, but her performance is so high-pitched it would suit any 18th-century stage. You think she’s going to swoon at any moment. Raina is earnest in her delusions, not obnoxious or mad. Cuellar loses us from the start, and only reels us back near play’s end, when she softens considerably under Bluntschli’s pragmatism.
Yet urbane Shaw peeks through nonetheless. Danny Hayes, as anti-hero Bluntschli, captures the essence of this matter-of-fact man who’s seen too much war in his life. He’s a soldier in name only, who hides chocolates in his cartridge belt and brandishes a pistol loaded with blanks. He’s a warrior but one who sees its atrocities with a clear eye, who sees fellow soldiers as ultimate cowards and wanna-be deserters. He signed up for army service only because Serbia was the closest country to his native Switzerland. Hayes is calm and collected, centered, while the others scurry to be funny. He allows Shaw to be Shaw. Composed and steady, Hayes lets the wit sparkle around him like stardust.
Elizabeth A. M. Keel, as imperious Katherine, the matriarch of the house, uses a contralto’s plummy tone to convey how impressed she is with herself and her new wealth, and how she expects everyone else to be as awe-struck. She is Shaw’s commanding mother figure, ordering others, her Major husband included, to conform to her standards however unjustified.
Keel carries this off with rich aplomb. After all, the Petkoffs are No. 1 in Bulgarian society. Why, they have a “library” and an electric bell to call the servants. No need to shout for them, that’s so declassé. Their family history of privilege, she boasts, goes back at least 20 years. As if to the manor born, Keel shines like a golden-age Hollywood character actress.
Any production of Shaw is worth seeing, even one slightly bumpy as this. The grand theater curmudgeon still speaks to us with conviction and much cleverness. He has a unique voice, for sure, talky and anti-dramatic at times, but never at a loss for words. What he proselytized for – and against, mostly against – has not gone out of fashion. He still cuts a fine prophetic figure.
Arms and the Man continues through November 7 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; and Monday, November 2, Industry Night at Classical Theatre at the DeLux Theater, 3303 Lyons. For more information, call 713-963-9665 or visit classicaltheatre.org. $10-$35.
