INVITATION TO A BEHEADING to 3 August 2008.
London.
INVITATION TO A BEHEADING
by Vladimir Nabokov adapted by Victor Sobchak.
Lion & Unicorn Theatre 42/44 Gaisford Street, Kentish Town, NW5 2ED To 3rd August 2008.
Thu–Sun 7:30pm.
Runs 2hr One interval.
TICKETS: 0207 485 9897.
www.actprovocateur.net/home.html
Review: Geoff Ambler 25 July 2008.
Nabokov in the hands of Act Provocateur brings pleasure from torment.
Nabokov’s novel, translated onto the stage by Lion and Unicorn Director Victor Sobchak, brings some of the most despicable, disgusting and thoroughly interesting characters that have graced a stage.
A magnificent assortment of rogues and reprobates accompany a condemned man through his final days. Driven to despair through not knowing how long he has left, Cincinnatus ponders his position and tries to avoid the unwanted attentions of Prison Director Rodion, a truly ghoulish gaoler, and the intriguing Pierre, another guest of the prison.
A surreal aspect pervades throughout and it takes a scene or two to get to grips with the black-walled hell Cincinnatus inhabits. Brief respite tempts him when a visit from his beautiful but slatternly wife is promised, however her appearance in the embrace of her lover only emphasises his purgatory. A pigtailed girl appears to tempt, torment and seduce with promises of escape. However, their relationship only hints at his crime, and the author’s Lolita.
Every part is evil, obtuse, sluttish, selfish or rotten in varying degrees but each is eminently watchable and never overpowering or over-played. The hell is all Cincinnatus’ and the show is a subversive delight to watch, relying on credible actors performing incredibly; Act Provocateur’s cast have a flair for the surreal.
Daren-Luc Kelly’s Rodion is what every Riff Raff should have been. A tremendously loathsome, physical performance of a deliciously dreadful creature, gaoler and servant to Avi Nassa, Prison Director, bureaucrat (a type of evil in itself) and tormentor of Cincinnatus; he seduces his incompetent, uninterested Attorney.
Kathryn Ritchie as wife Martha is stunning, immoral to excess and lustful with wild abandon, her shameless mocking of Cincinnatus both wonderfully wanton and wicked. George Sallis’s Pierre is another enigma, mixing faux charisma with enigmatic hounding. Cincinnatus’ sins remain unknown but George Xander presents a man almost at peace with his doom, pliant but not compliant, submissive but remaining the biggest riddle.
Sobchak has conjoured an eminently enjoyable hell, with a skilled cast and characters of stunning immorality. Torment should not be this enjoyable; unless it is someone else’s. A guilty pleasure.
Cincinnatus: George Xander.
Pierre: George Sallis.
Director of the Prison: Avi Nassa.
Mother-in-Law: Denys Gaskill.
Librarian: Christian Hogas.
Lover: Jon Sigurdsson.
Mother: Lucy Christy.
Attorney: Bethany Thompson.
Rodion: Daren-Luc Kelly.
Martha: Kathryn Ritchie.
Emmie: Andrea A R Hooymans.
Director: Victor Sobchak.
Special Effects: William Pine.
2008-07-29 00:26:30