Arms and the Man : Massingham’s exciting and disconcerting production is a mixture of performance styles that shows something is changing in Strathcona Park!
Photo, courtesy of Odyssey Theatre.
George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man (first staged in 1894) is a parody of war, with certain character “types” you might find in the Commedia, while the title is taken from the opening sentence of Virgil’s Aeneid, glorifying the heroic feats of war: I sing of arms and the man”. This decidedly mischievous Shavian spin on the Balkan Wars could justify director Andy Massingham’s attempt to locate this play in a tradition of masked popular theatre.
However, the challenge for a director is daunting because the situations are complex and the characters do not necessarily correspond to the types that one would expect from masked Commedia performance . Still, it turns out rather well, because Andy has the company thrusting ahead with a lot of energy and they get to the essence of this comedy by moving from silly histrionics, comic mime, to deep-seated and biting satire, spewing out what appears to be a contemporary take on current politics, on human foibles and war heroics that no longer have any place in our society.