Playwright George Bernard Shaw described the premiere of Arms and the Man in 1894 as “a ghastly failure”, not because the play was such, but because the audience would not stop laughing.

Director Ed Wightman sensibly avoids an audience’s indiscriminate laughter with an intelligent and thoroughly entertaining production for Canberra Rep. With a keen eye for Shaw’s swift wit and a sensitivity towards the playwright’s socialist ideals, Wightman skilfully directs an excellent Rep cast to achieve the balance between humorous satirical jibe and serious social commentary on class and war.

Set during and directly after the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1886, Shaw concocts an improbable situation, when Captain Buntschili (Joel Hutchings), a Swiss soldier with a penchant for chocolate and serving with the Serbian army, escapes into the room of the well-to-do, noble and naïvely romantic Raina (Lexi Sekuless). Raina is the daughter of Bulgarian Major Petkoff (Brian Kavanagh), and his domineering wife, Catherine, performed with commanding presence by Antonia Kitzel.

Shaw mingles farce and melodrama with pacifist conviction and reformist ideals. Action invokes laughter and language evokes intellect as Wightman’s actors play out their characters’ absurd follies. Only Hutching’s “Chocolate Soldier” remains a rudder of reason on a ship of fools.

Sekuless is ideally cast as the romanticised Raina, clinging to the heroine’s melodramatic ideal of romantic love. Betrothed to the foolish and comical Major Sergius Saranoff, played with perfect foolishness by Riley Bell, Raina succumbs to the fickle ideal of heroic love. As the servants of the household, Louka, played with the feisty will of a modern woman by Isha Menon, contrasts with the obsequious and dutiful Nicola, played with comedic skill by Paul Jackson.

Wightman and his creative team have wisely staged this production as a period piece, lending authenticity to Quentin Mitchell’s set design on Rep’s revolve and behind a scrim, imaginatively used to heighten the mood and atmosphere of the piece.

The detail observed transports the audience to the age of Wilde, Ibsen and Shaw. It is there in Anna Senior’s costumes, in Andrew Kay’s scenic art, Stephen Sill’s lighting and Jenna Golab’s sound and the stirring, whirling sound of Bulgarian music between scenes. The production soars to its finale with choreographer Annette Sharpe’s effusive Bulgarian dance and curtain-call choreography.

“My plays are all words.” Shaw said. Wightman and his actors have paid due allegiance to the text, and through the text, their characters. Judicious editing has shortened the evening but lost none of Shaw’s sharp wit, mockery or serious intent. The actors speak the words of fools and the words of the wise. They play out the words of comedy and utter the words of earnest comment on the follies of class and the stupidity of war.

Rep’s production of Arms and the Man gives food for thought and fun for all. Don’t miss the opportunity to see this rarely performed play.