THE MANDATE. To 26 January.
London
THE MANDATE
by Nikolai Erdman English version by Declan Donnellan from a literal translation by Dina Dodina
Cottesloe Theatre In rep to 26 January 2005
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed & Sat 2.30pm
Runs 2hr 30min One interval
TICKETS: 020 7452 3000
www.nationaltheatre.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 31 December
Savage Soviet social satire seeks to speak through production never quite in gear.The opening of Declan Donnellan's production recalls the end of Ayckbourn's Absurd Person Singular, where people have to play a game - when the music stops, last to stand still receives a forfeit. Ayckbourn's making a bitter point; in the swirl of activity opening The Mandate all that happens is that the cast bring on furniture. Easy though to identify the last to stop; there's plenty of sloppy stopping here - something typical of a production where fine individual performances don't mesh into an ensemble.
There's irony in beginning with scene-setting. As its own sharp ending makes clear, this 1925 play is about dislocation. It's set among the less than red in Soviet Russia. Deborah Findley's Nadjeda just knows she dislikes Bolsheviks and tries to marry her vacuous daughter to a plutocrat whose wealth survives Bolshevik depredations. The rich no longer want to acquire a title but strong proletarian links.
So young Pavel's sent off unwillingly to join the Party and acquire working-class connections. Erdman has him sum up the family's void by affixing a picture of Karl Marx to the back of a scenic painting. Which side is shown depends on the politics of who's visiting.
The workers when they come only want vodka, Pavel has to forge his own membership certificate (the Mandate) and the vengeful lodger who's complaining about some (apparently unheated) noodles being spilled on him by his capitalist hosts is powerless, despite his worker-credentials, to get anything done. The sense of dislocation increasingly focuses on the farcical device whereby the family servant, a sluttish worker who enjoys dreamy romances about the nobility, is mistaken for a returned Romanov.
There are many fine performances, from Naomi Frederick's appearance-obsessed airhead to Harry Towb's splendid old servant who brings things down to fundamentals and indicates a lifetime spent reacting to others. Sinead Matthews' servant remains sublimely unaware of anything while Carol Macready's old bourgeoise with her secret is equally dim if with expensively educated manner and rich tones. Somehow, though, it never takes flight; for all the swinging scene changes there's rarely the apparent effortlessness the play requires.
Pavel Sergeevich Guliachkin: Martin Hutson
Nadejda Petrovna Guliachkin: Deborah Findlay
Ivan Ivanovich Shironkin: Adrian Scarborough
Varvara Sergeevna Guliachkina: Naomi Frederick
Anastasia Nikolaevna: Sinead Matthews
Tamara Leopoldovna: Carol Macready
Organ-grinder/Zotik Frazevich Zarchin: Roger Sloman
Olymp Valerianovich Smetanich: Bruce Alexander
Valerian Olympovich Smetanich: Laurence Penry-Jones
Woman with Parrot and Tambourine/Feliziata Gordeevna: Anne White
Man with Drum/Ilyinkin: Sean Jackson
Caretaker/Autonom Sygizmundovich: David Collings
Ariadna Pavlinovna Zarchina: Sarah-Jane Drummey
Tosia, Susia: Anabel Barnston, Emily Gloyens/Alexandra Thomas-Davies, Daniella Wilson
Krantic Narkis Smaragdovich: Michael Rouse
Director: Declan Donnellan
Designer: Nick Ormerod
Lighting: Judith Greenwood
Sound: Rich Walsh
Music: Catherine Jayes
Music Director: Walter Fabeck
Movement: Jane Gibson
Company voice work: Patsy Rodenburg
Assistant director: Michelangelo Marchese
2005-01-02 17:55:15