Arms and the Man
A delightful Helena Bonham Carter stars as Raina, a Bulgarian woman from "a civilized family." News arrives that Bulgaria has prevailed in its war against the Serbs, a charge led by Raina's fiancé, Sergius, reportedly the deciding factor. On "the happiest night of my life," Raina receives an unexpected visitor in her bedroom, a chocolate-scarfing Swiss soldier of fortune who had been fighting for the Serbs and is fleeing for his life. His views on the military ("Remember, nine soliders out of ten are born fools") and disdainful account of the vainglorious Sergius's foolhardy charge are counter to her starry notions and high ideals. The return after the war of her "chocolate crème soldier" set in motion romantic entanglements that include Louka (Patsy Kensit), the family maid who is having a clandestine affair with Sergius. Satire may be what closes on Saturday night, as playwright George S. Kaufman famously quipped, but it plays very well on the BBC, from which this sterling 1989 production of Bernard Shaw's 1894 play originated. Shaw himself called his subversively funny play an "anti-romantic comedy," but it is more an anti-romantic-notions comedy whose observations about the "romance" of war and heroism still sting.--Donald Liebenson