LIFE WITH AN IDIOT adapted from Victor Erofeyev. Gate Theatre to 3 November
London
LIFE WITH AN IDIOT
from the short story by Victor Erofeyev, developed at the Royal National Theatre Studio
Gate Theatre To 3 November 2001
Runs 1hr 20min No interval
TICKETS 020 7229 0706
Review Vera Lustig 12 October
Part of the Gate's 'Madness' season, this adaptation is presented with great panache, but its political edge is blunted.After the performance I fell hungrily upon my programme notes. What I had just witnessed was riveting, zanily inventive, speedy and at times irritating. But what did the frenzied activity of four highly committed performers, careering back and forth along the traverse stage, signify? What was the metaphor underlying the welter of on-stage defecation, vandalism and brandishing of phallic symbols in the form of salami and other 'found objects', the trashing of the gleaming white minimalist set to the accompaniment of clashing piano chords?
I left the theatre with id and ego squabbling furiously inside my pounding head, the one rejoicing in the sheer chutzpah of the performance, the other muttering darkly about the play's political relevance being unclear to a British audience. What connected these shenanigans with Erofeyev's USSR, circa 1980?
Of course, that age-old battle between id and ego, anarchy and order, Dionysus and Apollo, is what Life with an Idiot is all about. The middle-class occupants of a pristine 'des. res.' - 'It's not the right white, it's so last season,' - are to be punished for some unspecified offence (later revealed to be lack of compassion) by having to give houseroom to an idiot. They hope for a holy fool, but are landed with Vova (excellent Fergus McLarnon, gasping and gurning through a rictus of a grin), who in the original resembles Lenin. Vova takes a shine to the frosty Masha and they are soon happily ensconced in the marital bed: the production plays cheekily with perspective, and the couple remain upright, concealed up to the neck by doors, clutching their pillows behind their heads.
This was a wickedly funny bedtime story, but one which lets us sleep too easily. There is no sense of the real wickedness that lurks even in the brightest of corners.
Masha: Tea Alagic
I: Gregory Gudgeon
Vova: Fergus McLarnon
Petrov/Guard: Rufus Wright
Musician: Charlie Winston
Director: Ben Harrison
Designer: Fred Meller
Lighting: Natasha Chivers
Composer: Charlie Winston
2001-10-18 02:29:02