A RUSSIAN IN THE WOODs. In rep to 13 April.

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A RUSSIAN IN THE WOODS
by Peter Whelan

The Pit, Barbican Theatre In rep to 13 April 2002
Eves 7.15 Mats 1.45pm
Runs 2hr 45min One interval

TICKETS 020 7638 8891
Review Timothy Ramsden 29 March

Possibly the first great play of the century; Robert Delamere and his cast certainly make it seem so.
Even more than his First World War play The Accrington Pals, Peter Whelan's new piece marries his interest in realistic social drama and theatrical non-realism. It's set mid-20th century, when the anti-Fascist conflict had congealed into the Cold War, among a British army unit established in an old Berlin mansion And it's a triumph; if tickets sold on artistic worth the returns queues would stretch right around the Barbican.

In a confident start to his career, or landing the part of a lifetime straight off, Anthony Flanagan plays naïve 19 year old education sergeant Pat Harford, who feels his defining moment of cowardice was his failure to talk to a Russian sentry. This makes him lie to protect the Soviet agent he unwittingly let in to the base.

The spy ends up bruised from a British army bashing. But bruises afflict everyone's psyche. The British officer, bereft of old certainties; the gay sergeant who's learned you can keep the closet door open so long as people trust you to stay inside; perhaps most, the German secretary whose dreams of working for the Americans evaporate in cold reality as she sets off back to her childhood home; for all there's a feeling of dislocation.

It emerges too through the German nightwatchman with his mystical vision of Europe's great artists being shot to pieces during the war. David Hinton's stolid creation, at once a displaced individual and the soul of German civilisation, is just one example of an acting company at its peak.

For this is all-out top grade company work. Colin Mace's enigmatic, bullying security officer, Charlie Simpson's irate, frustrated commander with little authority, Douglas Rao's apparently carefree American and Stuart Goodwin's sinister-edged military policeman are colourful ingredients in Whelan's mosaic.

And there is magnificent work from Flanagan, his confusion turning to wild assertion of principle, Anna Madeley as the perpetually edgy, nerve-propelled German and Louis Hilyer's military projectionist, his apparently confident humour covering deep concern for those he values.

Delamere's moody, intense production is greatly helped by the shattered elegance of Simon Higlett's many-sided setting, lit in heavy hues by Rick Fisher, and by the super-reality created through Harry Peat's music.

Pat Harford: Anthony Flanagan
Clive Burns: Colin Mace
Reg Dilke: Stuart Goodwin
Geoff Wirral: Charlie Simpson
Ilse Bucher: Anna Madeley
Fraser Cullen: Louis Hilyer
Dieter Stahl: David Hinton
Lloyd Jackson: Douglas Rao

Director: Robert Delamere
Designer: Simon Higlett
Lighting: Rick Fisher
Sound: Harry Peat/Charles Horne
Music: Harry Peat
Movement: Terry John Bates
Dialect: Charmian Hoare
Voice work: Andrew Wade/Lyn Darnley

2002-03-30 11:43:43