Andrew Gillies (7/94 Arms and the Man)
Excerpt from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 7/11/94: Andrew Gillies
Arms and The Man
But judging from the Public's recent "Arms and the Man," the Shaw is still ahead.
In short, this "Arms" is much funnier than what we sw at home, without sacrificing any of Shaw's cliche-pricking of the foolish idealisms of romance and war.
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Playing Bluntschli's showy antagonist, Sergius, is Andrew Gillies, who played Bluntschli in 1986, when the Saw last did "Arms." I've never seen Sergius made such a melancholy hero, truly distressed at his failed ideas.
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"Arms" culminates, as the best comedy should, by suffusing the audience with a joy greater than that of laughter alone.
© Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Excerpt from New York Magazine 9/19/94: Andrew Gillies
Philadelphia Falls, Niagara Rises
John Simon
Canada's other famed institution, The Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake, is no more Avis to Stratford's Hertz than Shaw considered himself second to Shakespeare.
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The big Shavian number this season is Arms and the Man, which, with renewed trouble in the Balkans, may seem particularly timely.
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The acting is a mixed bag, with Elizabeth Brown an unappealing Raina and Simon Bradbury carrying Bluntschli's Swiss antiheroics to supra-Alpine heights (even a Switzer can do with a spritz of charm). Only Andrew Gillies, as a touchingly blustering Saranoff, and Sarah Orenstein, as a properly improper Louka, have the requisite panache.
© New York Magazine