STARS IN THE MORNING SKY. To 17 August.
London.
STARS IN THE MORNING SKY
by Alexander Galin translated by Michael Glenny and Cathy Porter.
Riverside Studios (Studio 3) To 17 August 2008.
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sun 6pm Mat Sat 2.30pm.
Runs 1hr 45min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 8237 1111.
www.riversidestudios.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 10 August.
Showing what you don’t see at the Olympics.
To help present a positive image of Moscow for the 1980 Olympics the Soviet authorities forced the city’s prostitutes out from what must have seemed in prospect a lucrative summer. Alexander Galin's play shows a group of such women alighting in the rundown ex-mental ward where they’re stationed.
Set against the beds that fill the stage in various states of disarray and disrepair under Valentina’s rough care (Yasuko Hasegawa catches its decrepit misery aptly in his design for Jagged Fence’s production), first arrival is Emilie Patry’s delicate angel, Laura. Fair hair floating around her well made-up face, she’s a Soviet Blanche DuBois, claiming to be here by her own choice.
Her fantasies aren’t likely to be indulged by the practical Valentina (Jan Hirst, brisk-mannered and efficient, after a lifetime knowing how to follow the rules). But, as they arrive, each woman is bound up in her own concerns. They include underage, pregnant Maria and Klara, part of whose commanding manner comes away with her wig.
Laura later turns from virginal white to luridly coloured dress. Her liaison with Sebastian Aguirre’s Alexander, soft-spoken inmate of the the mental hospital, is a bare moment’s rest amid the roughness around. The other male, Martin Maynard’s Nikolai, is a brisk trooper on unofficial activity. The women who go out to meet men come back bruised and bloody.
Siobhan McSweeney and Emily Dobbs give fine portrayals of the streetwise survivor and the pregnant teenager who barely understands either what’s happening or her own pain, initially eager then shell-shocked into silence. Rachael Fishwick’s Anna, features already florid with the vodka that’s life’s only consolation, has the defensive aggression of someone beyond hope or regret.
It’s a fine performance in Peter McAllister’s production, which emphasises the play’s inward qualities – none of the heightened emotion as the Olympic Torch passes which featured in the Maly Drama Theatre’s premiere, just a siren bellowing.
But then, the play’s critique of Soviet grandiosity has less point here. It’s still a sharply-etched picture, at Olympics time, of the human variety and suffering among those who are tolerated, used but never accepted by society.
Valentina: Jan Hirst.
Laura: Emilie Patry.
Anna: Rachael Fishwick.
Alexander: Sebastian Aguirre.
Maria: Emily Dobbs.
Nikolai: Martin Maynard.
Klara: Siobhan McSweeney.
Director: Peter McAllister.
Designer: Yasuko Hasegawa.
Lighting: Sabr Hemming.
Sound: Roger Douek.
2008-08-12 13:41:59