Press Releases

For Immediate Release
February 4, 2010

For more information, contact
Cherise Oakley
(585) 395-2754
coakley@brockport.edu

The College at Brockport Stages Shaw’s Arms and the Man

Photo by Jim Dusen. Photo: Callie Jean Slusser as “Louka” and Timothy Ellison as “Nicola” in The College at Brockport’s production of George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man. Performances are February 25 – 28 and March 4 – 7, 2010.

Brockport, NY – Love, marriage and war intersect in Arms and the Man, one of George Bernard Shaw’s most beloved comedies. The College at Brockport’s Department of Theatre’s production of this classic play opens on Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 7:30 pm in the College’s Tower Fine Arts Center LAB Theatre, 180 Holley Street.

The action begins as Raina Petkoff — engaged to Sergius, a pompous cavalry officer —finds herself entranced by Bluntschli, who hides in her bedroom while escaping from the opposing army. However, Bluntschli shows himself to be less than dangerous when he reveals that he uses chocolate creams instead of ammunition in his weapon. The effect of these two soldiers on the Petkoff household allows Shaw to serve up some of his sharpest satire.

When Arms and the Man, one of Shaw’s earliest successes, premiered in the late 19th century there was no way he could have known that his heroine’s romantic notions of wars and their heroes would give way to the less seemly aspects that surfaced in World War I, a scant two decades later. Using what at the time seemed like a minor border skirmish between the Serbians and the Bulgarians as his starting point, Shaw draws his characters into neat sections: pacifist and war-monger; upper and lower class; romantic and realist. The shuffling and re-shuffling — and occasional skewering — of these archetypes highlights what director Frank Kuhn deems are "the pleasures of this play: Shaw's wit, fascinating comic characters, and delightful observations on the ironies of the human condition."

The full performance schedule for Arms and the Man is: February 25, 26, 27, March 4, 5, and 6, at 7:30 pm, and February 28 and March 7 at 2 pm. The performance on February 28 will be sign language interpreted for the hearing impaired.

Tickets for the performances are $12/General, $10/Seniors and College at Brockport Alumni, Faculty and Staff and $8/Students and are available by phone at (585) 395-ARTS or at the Tower Fine Arts Center Box Office. Tickets can also be obtained at all area Wegmans supermarkets.

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The College at Brockport, State University of New York
350 New Campus Drive * Brockport, New York 14420-2931
(585) 395-2754 * FAX (585) 395-2723 * www.brockport.edu