I love these comedies by Bernard Shaw. Especially Arms and the Man and the Chocolate Cream Soldier and You Never Can Tell. Good clean fun. ( )

Plays Pleasant, published in 1898, contains four of Bernard Shaw’s so-called pleasant or comic plays. The plays are Arms and the Man, Candida, The Man of Destiny and You Never Can Tell. He named it Plays Pleasant in order to set it apart from his previous collection of plays, Plays Unpleasant.

The first play of the book, Arms and the Man, takes its title from the opening words of Virgil’s Aeneid,

“Arma virumque cano” (of arms and the man I sing)

This was one of Shaw’s first commercially successful plays.

Arms and the Man is essentially a parody about the romantic ideas about love and the realities of life. In fact, this particular theme reappears in all of the plays in this book. It also pokes fun at the idea of heroism and the realities of war.

I must confess that as I’ve grown older I’ve liked the characters of Arms and the Man less and less. All of the characters are pretending to be something or the other. Raina Petkoff is trying to be a romantic heroine pining away for her fiancé to return triumphant from war. Sergius Sranoff, a reckless and conniving young man, pretending to be a true noble hero. Major and Mrs. Petkoff trying to be genteel while in reality they are crude common people with a lot of money. Louka trying desperately to better her social position. Nicola being polite and proper, without really being sincere about his intentions.

Of all the characters in the play I like the character of Bluntschli the best. He’s the only character who’s not pretending to be something he’s not.

Arms and the Man is entertaining but all of the characters are so insincere that after a while it gets really trying.

The second play, Candida, revolves around the character of Candida, an intelligent and engaging woman who is also a devoted wife and a mother.

The change that the characters of Reverend Morell, Candida’s husband and Eugene Marchbanks, her young admirer, goes through is remarkable. I don’t quite see the purpose of the character of Mr. Burgess other than to provide some comic relief.

The theme of the absurdity of romantic ideas about love and the realities of life is visited once more in Candida.

Candida is by far my favorite play of the book. It has refreshing storyline for the Victorian era in which this play belongs to. A new twist to the then conventional ideas of freedom, marriage and romance. The way Candida explains her point of view and very casually takes her over confident spouse down a notch makes for a good read.

The next play is a piece of historical fiction called The Man of Destiny. It features the real historical figure of Napoleon Bonaparte along with three fictional characters.

It is a short piece of work. To me this play seemed the least eager to prove a point. It is a pretty good bit of historical fiction and I quite enjoyed it.

The last play, You Never Can Tell, is a sort of a comedy of error featuring rather serious issues of marriage, separation, custody of children, money, etc. As in Arms and the Man and Candida, the debate about the true nature of love and marriage and the traditional role of man and woman in it are once again discussed. The tone of the play is deceptively light while dealing with some very prickly issues.

Dr. Valentine annoyed me. Falling in love at first sight with the beautiful but utterly unsuitable Miss Clandon and then being afraid at the prospect of actually getting married to her exasperated me to no end. The only characters I enjoyed are young Dolly Clandon, Mr. Bohun and Walter, the waiter.

I don’t like romance and most of these plays, especially You Never Can Tell, has quite a bit of that. Shaw’s idea of romance frankly irritates me. All that flirting and trying to gain advantage over each other as if they were enemies makes me really annoyed.

I don’t know what it is but something about this play makes me uncomfortable. Perhaps it is Mr. Crampton’s rough aggressiveness and bitter loneliness or perhaps it is the rather inhuman way all of his children behave. In fact their mother, Mrs. Clandon, who has supposedly made them that way is far more like a human being than any of them are.

Let me make it very clear that these plays are not light works of comedy meant to be enjoyed in a frivolous way. Yes, parts of them are certainly very witty and they are meant to entertain us but they are also very much intended to aggravate us. This is what George Bernard Shaw was famous for, satirizing social and political problems with a biting wit. And aggravate he does. But he also does not fail to entertain. Recommended but only if one is not afraid of reading classics (or plays for that matter). ( )

"Arms and the Man" is a farce with beards. I can't comment on the others since I've not read them.

Includes Arms and the Man, Candida, The Man of Destiny, and You Never Can Tell.