Emily Berman as Louka, Arielle Goldman as Raina, and Margot McGrath as Madame Petkoff surround Major Sergius Saranoff (Paul Koch) in "Arms and the Man"

photo by Peter Smith Photography

Of George Bernard Shaw’s many, many plays, “Arms and the Man” — now being staged by the University of Michigan department of theatre and drama — is probably the most produced.

Why? Probably because — compared to Shaw’s other work — “Arms” is relatively concise and features accessible comedy focused on timeless topics like war, class, and love.

“The themes and threads within the play are deliciously fun to follow for the audience,” said director Philip Kerr. “It’s a social comedy — Shaw called it a ‘serious comedy’ — and when the play was first done (in 1894), it bewildered the audience, but they really liked it, too. … Soon, some of the actors started to camp it up with a little ‘wink wink, nudge nudge,’ and Shaw, as the director, stepped in at that point and said, ‘Stop doing that. You can’t play it for laughs. You have to play it for the ideas, and draw the comedy out of the situation, and comedy out of the pursuit of ideas, because these are characters who feel strongly about what they believe.”

Shaw’s play tells the story of a Swiss mercenary soldier, Bluntschli, who’s fighting in the Serbo-Bulgarian War. One night, when he hides in the room of an idealistic young woman, Raina, she decides to help him to evade capture.

Engaged to a dashing but oafish hero of the war, Raina views Bluntschli as a coward because he would rather carry chocolates than bullets. But after she helps him escape, Raina's fiancée’s flaws become more apparent, and Bluntschli reappears at her family’s home.

“The play was written in the 1890s, … and it was cutting-edge theater for its time,” said Kerr. “If you look at what else was in theaters at the time, you had Gilbert and Sullivan shows, moral dramas, … and musical entertainments. This was a serious play, in its way, but audiences enjoyed it.”

“Arms”’ cast of eight is relatively small for a Shaw play, and Kerr has cut very little from the original text.

“Shaw is notoriously difficult to cut, because the ideas and themes in the narrative … are so tightly wrought,” said Kerr. “And (‘Arms’) really barrels along as it is.”

But for young actors, Shaw’s language often offers a substantial challenge.

“It’s very well-crafted talk, and you have to able to execute it, and … translate operative thoughts into operative words,” said Kerr. “Now we’re used to casual talk, shorter sentences - those types of responses, and we’re much more visually attuned in other ways. So that’s the challenge. … If Shaw’s done right, there’s a dialogue between the play happening on stage and the audience.”

But why did Shaw seize upon the Serbo-Bulgarian War?

“In his first draft of the play, he just started with an idea, and called the characters ‘Man’ and ‘Woman.’ Then he started looking for a war and consulted friends.”

One friend, Sidney Webb, suggested the Serbo-Bulgarian conflict, though Kerr explains that that war was really, for Shaw, “a stand-in for the basic power struggles that were happening among the major powers.”

Perhaps one of the most charming stories regarding “Arms”’ development and premiere, though, involves Shaw being called up onto the stage after an early performance. The crowd cheered for him, save for one booing patron, to whom Shaw said, “My dear fellow, I quite agree with you, but what are two against so many?”