THE PROMISE. Tricycle Theatre to 16 March.

London

THE PROMISE
by Alexei Arbuzov, new version by Nick Dear from a translation by Ariadne Nicolaeff

Tricycle Theatre To 16 March 2002
Runs 2hr 45min One interval

TICKETS 020 7328 1000
Review Timothy Ramsden 25 February

Life among the housing allocation upgrade class fails to make for a riveting evening.Good ideas do not make good plays; good playwrights do. Likewise with fine, memorable, outstanding. And deeply mediocre. On the basis of this revival, Arbuzov ranks with the most mediocre.

Where are we now; what became of our youth and its promise? Such well-worn themes need new-treading to make them fresh. Here we have a hackneyed plod feebly waving the banner of political correctness, Soviet-style circa 1965.

Bunny Christie's set, using the Tricycle stage with unusual depth, may claim to overlook Leningrad's Fontanka Canal but this play belongs on the boulevard, or Broadway at its most matinee coach-partyish.

So, when we've travelled from 1942 and the Siege of Stalingrad via post-war austerity (no-one mentions Stalin) to the self-confident eve of the sixties, there's a reference back to the proud figure of Kirov at the 1934 Mayday parade. It was Kirov's murder (probably on Stalin's order) that enabled the dictator to begin his purges. And Stalin was denounced by Khruschev, the USSR boss when Arbuzov was writing.

Imagine a modern British play filled with the glories of Tony Blair, sans irony, sans criticism and you'll have some idea of how limited this play is.

Nicolas Kent's indifferently-acted production doesn't help. Characters walk about the stage like British folk in Russian dress. There's little sense of urgency in the acting. Not only do the engineer Marat and the poet Leonidik both love Lika; both at some point walk out of her life for the other's sake. Both are fired by the sufferings of Stalingrad where we first meet them, frozen and half-starved.

Yet they behave as if there was no more to concern them than whether they should really have chosen cappuccino over latte last night. The only exceptions are brief outbursts redolent of drama-studio exercises. The men's grey hair and moustache look straight from the amateurs' effects box.

In the 1960s this was the first Soviet play to reach the West End. Very much West End in spirit it also had Judi Dench, Ian McKellen and Ian McShane. At the Tricycle, where it doesn't, The Promise becomes more of a threat.

Lika: Jenny Jules
Marat: Paul Nicholls
Leonidik: Gyuri Sarossy

Director: Nicolas Kent
Designer: Bunny Christie
Lighting: Matthew Eagland
Sound/Composer: Gregg R. Fisher
Video Editor: Richard Long

2002-02-26 00:13:52