THE SLOW SWORD. To 8 December.
London.
THE SLOW SWORD
by Yuri Klavdiyev translated by Noah Birksted-Breen.
Old Red Lion Theatre 418 St John’s Street EC1V 4NJ To 8 December 2007.
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Sun 6pm.
Runs 2hr 35min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 78737 7816.
www.oldredliontheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 25 November.
Vivid picture of social fragmentation after the collapse of Socialism.
Whether it’s the aftermath of Communism or the influx of Western Capitalism, the Russia of Yuri Klavdiyev’s play is as grim and divided as Britain or America: a hectic office world, with no real communication between colleagues hastily clattering out the orisons of profit on computer keyboards, and outside, a dark world of violence and drugs.
When Vladimir jumps off the commercial merry-go-round he voyages from his safe home into a night-time, nightmare world like that of Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, the modern template for such upstairs-downstairs views of affluent societies.
In hi-tech office or out on the streets, pursuit of money drives people. Vulnerability is perilous. People get robbed on the toilet. An old woman’s attacked in the home she helped build, her pension and award for building Communism being taken by thieves. A trio of taxi-drivers are on the make, police are corrupt or ineffectual.
Amongst this, Vlad seeks a surer foundation for his life. And he finds it, after his search, in a renewed relationship with his partner Alla, another hi-tech exec. (though the sustained chords that accompany their eventual sex are those already used for vein-drilling, leg-bruised drug-ecstasy).
It’s hardly the first in-’yer-post-Soviet-face drama, but Vlad’s search for something beyond materialism transcends theatrical quick-win vignettes of social aggro, and director/translator Noah Birksted-Breen seeks to do more than catapult through the hopes and horrors in this Sputnik Theatre production. The drivers, the burglars, the addicts all show a measure of humanity, however crushed and battered.
The price is a creeping ponderousness, where events, and lines, can seem over-deliberate. It’s not the production itself, where scenes often elide, that acts as a drag, but individual performances. Sometimes, a bit of casualness, a sense of chat rather than public delivery, would be helpful.
If it arises anywhere, it’s in the few scenes between Vlad and Alla. And if their sexual encounter’s hardly the most elegant ever staged, it has a warm sense of bodies, and people, wanting to get close to, and find satisfaction in, each other. A satisfaction evidently not available out on Moscow’s mean streets these days.
Yuri/Attacker/Alexei: John Glynn.
Valentina Mikhailova/Alya: Janet Jefferies.
Gosha/Boatman/Beggar/Roma: John Joyce.
Lyosha/Bloke 2/Goth/Dealer/Attacker/Office Colleague: Adam Lewis.
Yulia/Alena: Gehane Strehler.
Vlad: Simon Tcherniak.
Alla/Yulia/Peasant Girl: Laila Vakil.
Sasha/Policemen/Office Colleague: Lawrence Werber.
Director: Noah Birksted-Breen.
Designer/Costume: Alice Butler.
Lighting: Charlie Lucas.
Sound/Composer: Hans Biorn Lian.
Assistant director: Gergo Danka.
2007-11-27 10:35:19