A scene from Odyssey Theatre’s production of Arms and the Man.
Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man “has been called everything from an anti-war play to an anti-romantic comedy,” says Odyssey Theatre director Andy Massingham, whose masked production of the acclaimed satire is set to debut in Strathcona Park next week.
Arms and the Man is set during the aftermath of the 1885 Serbo-Bulgarian War. Raina, a young Bulgarian woman, is engaged to war hero Sergius Saranoff, but finds herself falling for the “cowardly” Captain Bluntschli, a Swiss mercenary who carries chocolates instead of pistol cartridges.
“We’re examining the themes of what is war, what is romance,” says Massingham. “It has some cynicism, but it’s ultimately a hopeful play about love, the power of it, the triumph of it, and also that fate plays a role that we can’t predict in our lives.”
Last summer, Massingham directed French playwright Marivaux’s The Game of Love and Chance for Odyssey as a masked production. Now, Massingham has Shaw’s characters don masks – the first for a production of Arms and the Man – and embraces the surrealism in Shaw’s writing.
“The mask is very freeing and you tend to see what’s underneath,” says first-time Odyssey Theatre performer David Warburton. “Most people wear masks in their everyday lives, but once you put a mask on, it really reveals what’s going on inside.”
Warburton, who plays Raina’s father, Major Petkoff, has appeared in several plays by Shaw, including productions of My Fair Lady, based on Shaw’s Pygmalion.
“We’re taking what is normally viewed as quite a psychological piece and spinning it on its head,” says actor Attila Clemann, who plays Captain Bluntschli, allowing the performers to “be as physical and open and big as possible” for this outdoor venue.
“Anybody who’s ever seen Arms and the Man,” says Massingham “you haven’t seen what we’re doing with it, which is turning it really inside out.”
Odyssey Theatre’s production of Arms and the Man will run from July 25 to Aug. 25 in Strathcona Park as part of the company’s Theatre Under the Stars series. Regular performances are from Tuesday to Sunday at 8 p.m. Matinees will be held indoors at the University of Ottawa’s Academic Hall Theatre on Thursdays and Sundays at 2 p.m.