THE GAMBLERS till 21 May

THE GAMBLERS, Nikolai Gogol, translated Stephen Mulrine
Runs: 17 21 May, Crescent Theatre, Birmingham; 1h 40m, one interval
Review: Rod Dungate, 17 May 2005

A dark and mysterious play, a real find
THE GAMBLERS has never really been staged in the UK. (It has been glimpsed in a much adapted version.) It's a fascinating play to watch and, in Nevares's careful and cared-for production amazingly modern.

This ad hoc company of performers has produced the play on a small budget; so everything comes at a premium the play is what you get and all you get. Nevares has trained in Russia and this can surely be seen in the care, confidence and style of the production. Gogol's play is a strangely dark play about the tricks gamblers play to get money from their helpless victims. His dialogue is often mysterious, often banal, always highly selected. It's realistic dialogue that the actors paint in the same slightly bright colours the writer uses. The effect is a heightened naturalism and we see why Gogol is sometimes called the father of Russian naturalism.

The play itself has the twists and turns that we have come to know from modern gambling/ con men films, but here was Gogol in the 1840s. Yet while he is revealing to us the tricks of the trade the man who skips town, leaving his cards; the drunks who drop a suitcase from a carriage, leaving a suitcase of cards; the way cards are marked we sense how strongly he comments on the Russia of his day.

Simon Turner plays the central card-sharp, Ikharev. There is a vulnerability about him that as easily deceives us as it would his victims. He strongly hits the irony of the conclusion without ever letting his character see the irony himself. Nevares, in addition to directing, plays gambler Uteshitelny; looking like a jolly Dickensian rogue his conning of 200,000 roubles is chilling. Some welcome comedy is introduced by Michael Allen's urbane gambler, Krugel.

Ikharev: Simon Turner
Gavryushka: Jez Alsop
Alena: Annette Emery
Krugel: Michael Allen
Shvokhnev: John Savage
Uteshitelny: Rogelio Nevares
Glov: James Parsons
Young Glov: Robin Ashley
Zamukhryshkin: Jon Pegg

2005-05-18 19:58:43