The White Guard
Sydney Theatre Company and Commonwealth Bank present THE WHITE GUARD by Mikhail Bulgakov. In a new version by Andrew Upton at the Sydney Theatre.
On a recent Wednesday morning on my way to the university after another job working in Surry Hills, I decided to get out of the bus and go to the Fox Precinct markets to but some flowers and some organic/gourmet food stuffs and browse. It struck me, on this early winter day, what a lucky life I led. That I could leave family at home in the morning and know, definitely, that in eight hours time I would return to that home, after taking an unplanned excursion to a marketplace, buy some unnecessary ‘goodies’, without stress. Buy anything I wanted, do anything I wanted. That the loved ones that I left at home, after their chores etc would also be more than likely , at home, as well, at the end of the day.
I reflected what it must be like in Baghdad. I reflected what it must be like in Pakistan, in the Middle East. I reflected what it must be like in so many other places that I knew, only through television, where no one in that family could be sure that one’s world would hold constant in that 8 hours. In that 24 hours, that week. War and personal destruction a constant constancy.
I had been working on a gathering of scenes from an Australian play THE TOUCH OF SILK by Betty Roland, a recent American play, TIME STANDS STILL by Donald Margulies, a short one act play by Simon Stephens called A CANOPY OF STARS (from a collection of nine one act plays called THE GREAT GAME: AFGHANISTAN), and BIRDSONG by Rachael Wagstaff from the Sebastian Faulks novel of popular fame. Some others as well of similar theme. What struck me was all these plays dealt with the catastrophe of war. The warriors themselves in these devastating places, and, especially, the home- fire spaces where the insidious ‘collateral damaged’ were weathering out the after affects of war. Ms Roland’s play is set in country Australia in 1928 and concerns the ‘collateral’ effects of war on civilian extended families and the returned soldier. This is true of the 2009- 2010 international plays of Margulie, Stephens and Wagstaff. Horrible, fully-listed casualties of the web of war fall-out are delineated for us through an exquisite glass darkly. The power of these texts are palpable, even if they are spoken from a foreign country, another cultural perspective, they still bring the experience to our lives in vivid context because of the human and common content.
I wondered why the contemporary Australian playwright had not found their play about the Australian experience concerning our present war obligations and consequences. Everyday the newspapers record the newly dead and the grieving presence of our Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition with the bereft families. Beyond that patriotic (jingoistic?) appropriation for the press and political approbation, we hardly hear, if ever, of our war casualties and their physical or psychological hospital battles at home. We never hear of our Australian wives, children and extended families and their civilian ‘war injuries’ as they struggle with the new reality of their daily situation.
Now, whether this is the result of our Defence Department’s information control (or is it censorship?) that prohibits or precludes the research into such stories by our writers, or simply that our theatre organisations just do not believe it is box office and so deny production of written Australian projects engaged in this contemporary issue, I cannot discern.
Maybe the Sydney Theatre Company can enlighten us with the result of their programming of the amazing, beautiful,and, in contrast to the usual Australian theatre content, the daring of Daniel Keene’s THE SERPENTS TEETH; CITIZENS AND SOLDIERS? Was the response a box-office prohibitive? (why has the MTC not scheduled it? He is a Melbourne son, after all). Is this material too difficult for the Australian theatre goer? They won’t come? No money return? Is that it? Hmm? Is that a moral reason for not including it? Or, is that last question, an inappropriate one? Morality in the arts and what it decides to reveal for the audience in it’s looming zeitgeist? Awakened or anaesthetised audiences?
In this mood, while watching the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of THE WHITE GUARD by the great Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, two speeches jumped out of me and began this cogitation:
Firstly, from Alexi (Darren Gilshenan) in Act One Scene One:
“…I looked out …In the shadows, behind the fog I saw the enemy. Our real enemy. Petlyura? No. He is just one insignificant wave of blood, and behind him – yes, louder, yes, fiercer, more desperate and destructive, the Bolsheviks, yes …but even still further behind, from deeper in the shadows, I saw another enemy, the real enemy. The enemy hounding all these pawns on at us. Flinging men and blood at us. This modern world. This world hates us for our past, our tradition, our strength. This world of every man for himself and damn the rest of you; this gaping, grasping, endless stream of envy and hatred we’ve unleashed. And those are the real enemies we face, deep in the shadows. This modern man with no name, no past, no love. This desperate hate-filled man born of loneliness and frustration. This man with nothing to be proud of, nothing he is part of … There is a tide rising against us, and all we all know and all that we define ourselves with will be eradicated. Bigger than Petlyura, bigger than Bolshevism … it is the future and I hate it. Either we will bury it or it will bury us. That is the battle we are fighting, gentlemen.” (P32 of the National Theatre play publication of the Andrew Upton’s new version).
Breathtakingly modern and passionate in the mouth of Mr Gilshenan.
Secondarily, from Lena (Miranda Otto), Act Three, Scene Two :
“QUIET ! Down. Both of you. Fighting. Fighting. Tearing at each other over ‘Russia’ and the ‘will of the people’ and daring … to invoke my brother’s name in your defence? My brother’s memory? How dare you pollute it with … take your civil war out of my house and leave us alone, to honour the memory of our brother who was NOT a soldier first and foremost, actually. Who did NOT die in some honour of the White Guard … In fact, who was killed in a pointless battle, over a pointless squabble. Over a pointless, stupid, tussle for … what? A country? A country? What is that? To fight over?
Murdered. Murdered, that’s what he was. Murdered by a world gone mad with … mad with. This.
This. Exactly this.” (p.98-99 of the National Theatre play publication of Andrew Upton’s new version).
Strikingly modern and arresting coming from the only female character in the play.
I was moved powerfully by these speeches. Enough to look them up. Can you begin to comprehend my consternation and awe when I looked at the only other translation that I have of this play, by Michael Glenny for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production in 1979, to find this as the translation of Alexi’s speech in Act One Scene Two :
“The fact is, as I sit here amongst you all, I’m obsessed by one thought: God, if only we could have foreseen all this earlier! Do you know what this Petlyura is? He’s a myth, a black fog. He doesn’t exist. Look out of the window and see what’s there. A snow-storm, shadows, that’s all … there are only two real forces in Russia, gentlemen: the Bolsheviks and us. And these two forces will clash before long. I see even blacker times ahead. I see … well, no matter. We can’t stop Petlyura. But he won’t stay for long. And after him the Bolsheviks will come. That’s why I shall go and fight. Against my will, but I shall fight! Because when we come face to face with them – then we shall see some fun. Either we shall bury them, or more likely, they will bury us. I drink to THAT meeting, gentlemen! ” (P24 of the Eyre Methuen play publication).
Then of Lena’s speech in Act Three, Scene two ( Lena does not actually have a speech, just some scattered lines within the arguments of others):
“I see now! Alexi’s dead!” Later:
“Look at his face. Look at it. In any case, I don’t need to see his face. I knew it, I felt it when he left here, I knew it would end like this!” Further:
“Larion, Alyosha’s dead. Yesterday you were sitting at table with him – remember? And now he is dead.” Again, briefly:
“And what about you? You were his senior officers! His senior officers! You all came home, but your commanding officer was killed…”
(p68-69 of the Eyre Methuen play publication).
In the latter case, of Lena’s speech, you can see that Mr Upton has entirely invented, created an entirely original speech that does not have any real basis as translation but is truly a new version that does seem, to me, fulfil a contemporary aspiration for my culture in my time. I was moved enough to note it and check it out.
Similarly the former transcript of Alexi’s speech, reveals the Upton Alexi speech as a grand contemporary extrapolation from the narrower more period politically concerned vision of Bulgakov, that, now, humanistically speaks to the broader cultural perception of today. It is noble, inspiring. It is not ,of course Bulgakov. It is Upton. It is not 1926, Russia. It is 2010, Great Britain, and by default, Australia. It is not a translation. It is an adaptation. A new approximate. “A new version”.
I don’t mind in the least. The Bulgakov purists may, and perhaps rightly so. But what surprises me is that Mr Upton who can write so passionately about war and have such inspiring observation, needs to couch them, within the reputation and the work of another writer. These original writings, expressing such inspiring and comforting ideas could, I am sure, just as well, stand strongly, in a wholly original play by Andrew Upton. Does he really need the Bulkgakov original to cloak his writer’s voice in?
Subtly, Mr Upton has done this with his versions of HEDDA GABLER, THE PHILISTINES and THE CHERRY ORCHARD as well. Versions, adaptations that have the Upton stamp – contemporary point of view, extended appropriation. Gentle additions, expansions that digress from the Ibsen argument or observation, or creates a different Gorky or Chekhov characteristic, that changes the actuality of the original.
These are violations of my own sensibility of varying intensities of agony which I bear, but, obviously are not, for his commissioning agents or directors. And what do I know, anyway? I ponder: was the general popular and particular critical response to Mr Upton’s RIFLEMIND so afflicting that he has not created whole again? Where is his next play that does not have the superstructure of another writer’s work and familiar cultural cloaking approval?
To follow up on James Waites latest blog of 13th July, 2011: “Sounds Australian: Now and Again”, it seems to me that THE WHITE GUARD that Mr Upton has penned is a considerable new Australian work. Similarly, Benedict Andrew’s version of Anton Chekhov’s THE SEAGULL (the writing not the production). The Australian sensibility is terribly present, to some ears, in these works. And surely, Mr Jonathan Gavin’s THE BUSINESS is a spectacularly original work, just pushed onto the stage, much to prematurely, it needs, needed more than three drafts to start with, and possibly a steadier production/director’s hand.
New, new Australian plays are being done and are coming to all of the venues. BULLY BEEF STEW at the PACT, recently, was very interesting and for my money, an important progressive work. The STAINLESS STEEL RAT, by Ron Elisha, at the Seymour Centre, in a bold enterprise led by Wayne Harrison, with all of its flaws, exhibited enough wit – audiences were genuinely laughing out loud with huge guffaws of pleasure – to make a positive impression.
So, guys, cool it, it is happening and in the way that wilful fate decrees. The timing has been, for some of you, imperfect, but your needs, even of your having to sit through some bad Australian plays, undoubtedly, to equal the so-called bad international plays, that this season you have so far endured, that at the moment you say you prefer to sit through, will be met.
To encourage your wants, I saw Ian Wilding’s new play THE WATER CARRIERS at MTC, this week and felt it was a terrific new Australian play, a very imperfect contribution from this writer, that gave us the very funny and acidic QUACK last year at the Griffin. Mr Wilding is no disappointment (he has a commissioned work being premièred at NIDA later this year, as well).
Back to THE WHITE GUARD: Mr Upton as director of The Sydney Theatre Company’s production of THE WHITE GUARD seems to have a much better handle in staging then he exhibited last year, on this same stage, with his disastrous LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT. But then, with this, he has had a model with the highly praised production of his text by Howard Davies at the National Theatre, London in March/April last year to give him some hints. It is sadly interesting to see here, that the flagship Australian company (or the pretender), the Sydney Theatre Company, with, even one of the Artistic Director’s of the company, at the helm, both as writer and director, could only afford/budget 14 actors for the production in contrast to the 24 or so (with two musicians) in the original in London.
Mr Upton was eager to show off this work. For it is in this compromise, in this depletion of of body numbers that we see some impediments to some of Bulgakov’s intents in this production. The sheer chaos and spectacular crisis of fleeing, disruptive humanity in the reaction to the explosions of the unpredictable affects of a live war zone is missed.
In compensation this testosterone driven company of mostly young men, bluster and shout and behave – I understand that all the actors were, gently, electronically boosted, to help compensate for the horrors and terrors of this theatre’s notorious acoustics, hence some of the noise(?) – generally like Aussie larrikins, (the usual ANZAC soldier characterisation), pretending to be a large Russian and German cohort, depending on the scene and army they are impersonating, robustly singing and dancing folk and period war songs to create theatrical distractions from necessary scene changes. Or, to give an attempt at Russian authenticity, stamping feet, standing on furniture, swilling willy-nilly vodka, with generalised comprehension of what that may be, instead, of a dramatic end expression of nations and their men involved in miserable war. Hollow blow-hardisms, instead of men and families, in this case the domestic world of the Turbins, swamped and permanently tainted and damaged by the first hand experience of war. Deep pain and shock. Living in an unpredictable evolving war zone. Not having a sing-a-long piss up around the fire.
The attention of the details of the chaos is slight and underwhelming in its “Bulgakovian” sweep, especially when compared to the psychologically detailed examinations of Sergei Tcherkassy’s 2010 production of FLIGHT – Bulgakov’s other great war play, at the National Institute of Dramatic Art* (NIDA), where he had some 40 actors at his behest. Mr Tcherkassy (from the St Petersburg Drama Institution), certainly, knows the pains of his country’s history and heritage, and gave grave and thoughtful, specific direction to his young Australian actors to find the truthful means to capture and express it. It was meticulous and never generalised and ‘whoopee’.
What is also missing, because of the difficulty of the multiple casting necessary with this limited company size, is the ironic comedy of some of the play. Bulgakov, if you are familiar with his short stories, A COUNTRY DOCTOR’S NOTEBOOK or his scabrous novella BLACK SNOW (a delicious satire about Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre – adapted for the stage in a truly marvellous comic play, by Keith Dewhurst) has the combination of the detached scientific mind of a doctor accompanied with an intelligent but pained sense of the irony of being a living organism with brains and sensitivities, in a finite and humanly frail world. Chekhov, too was a doctor with a comic flair for the observation of life in Russia.
The audience, maybe not able to catch it, in this production as they sorted out that that actor is now, someone else, a German not a Russian, and he is funny not serious. Oh, right,look he is wearing a beard and different hat! There is comprehensible bewilderment for large chunks of adjustments for our imaginations, and the detail of comic form is not adequately grasped as speedily as should be. The play’s necessary momentum sweeps on, and does not wait for the slow of wit or inattentive laggards. It is, of course a Director’s job to make even the most witless member of the audience to be attentive and never be laggard – a job that requires practised mastery. To follow Tyrone Guthrie’s maxim: “That a director should be an ideal audience of one”. A beginner approaches such a big play at the very big risk of possible failure.
Miranda Otto (Lena), representing the feminine aspect of mankind, dominates her every scene with deeply felt insights and growing and dawning pain, that are expressed elegantly and deftly, lightly, with a sublime physicality and vocal expression. Her inner life is deep yet that depth is transparent, for all to pierce, to read. It is a surprise to discover that her actual stage time is so limited, for her accumulative impact is memorable, indeed. Mind you, the dress/costume, designed by Alice Babidge is an enormous asset to the affect of the characterisation created by Ms Otto- its material movement mesmerizing.
Darrenn Gilshenan (Alexi), also scores impressively, especially in the first act. Dale March (Larion), grows perceptibly and impressively throughout the play and makes great affect in the last act. Patrick Brammall (Leonid) while having the presence and the possible romantic edge does not bring the power of a soldier at war into any heroic belief – too literally a comic foil in the directorial expression of this complex man.
The most insightful performance and subtle arc development, for me, was the work of Richard Pyros as Nikolai, who in the last act impresses the horribly humiliating ridiculousness of man at war with his wounded body and, probably soul, aching for invisibility in a distressing predicament of being half dead and, so, consequently, tragically only half alive. Death has touched, but, tauntingly, not taken him. His cowering, aching suffering his tender to absorb. It is he that brought the relevance of this play to my life in Sydney, in the context of surrounding contemporary world events. I had a weep. Powerful and modestly understated.
Unlike the bombast of Cameron Goodall as Viktor, who mistakes the commitment to full-on energy for good acting. Mr Goodall needs Ms Charmian Gradwell, as the voice coach, to hector him, if he cannot take the note, that the barrage of explosive plosive “p”and “b” in words: these choices draw attention to the actor and his technique and are not the subtle drawing of characteristics or character (see my blog post on Vs.Macbeth!) that he imagines.
The set design by Alice Babidge is extremely impressive in its movement in scene change. A sense of epic and surprise is terrifically executed. I quibble with the narrow shape of the Turbin household, stretched thinly across the width of the proscenium arch, resembling a hallway or passageway, that appeared to be camped in by a dispossessed family. The problems of staging the bookend scenes of the play were made difficult with this resolution to the design.
Lighting by Nick Schlieper, outstanding as usual. The bomb and cannon explosions in the war scenes by Steve Francis suitably shattering, bone shaking. Alan Johns music scoring and arrangement are great, although the amateur decision to sing one more beautiful verse of Russian song at the curtain call was a temptation that should have been avoided. An atmosphere of the school concert demonstrating good work by these young people, rather than enhancing the final moments of a well earned dignity for the play and mankind was achieved. It diminished what we, the audience had to take home from this play.
I was moved by the accumulative power of the play and was glad to have seen it, however, approximate it was to Bulgakov’s original text. MADAME ZOYA’S APARTMENT or an adaption of Bulgakov’s great, and some say best work, the novel, THE MASTER AND MARGARITA, of which I have read many, might be a possibility sometime, before time catches up, I hope.
Or how about THE GREAT GAME: AFGHANISTAN or an Australian play about our contemporary war collateral damage in our neighbour’s backyard. Art can shape and/or influence history. Sometimes. Ask Beaumarchais.
*I should as well declare, in the context of this review, that I am at present a member of the teaching staff at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) – Kevin Jackson.
8 replies to “The White Guard”
Let me say at the outset, I am an admirer of Andrew Upton’s adaptation of The White Guard. In seeking out the layer of dark satire, this adaptation reveals Bulgakov’s true intent, stripping away the necessary layers of obfuscation required to pass heinous Stalinist censorship. Let me also admit that I attended a preview, being unable to afford the more expensive seats throughout the season proper.
However, I have to declare that, as a director, Mr Upton needs to take a lesson from Bulgakov, and spend many hours playing in a shadow box theatre in the privacy of his study. He lacks command of space, shows wilful peculiarities in casting and precious little understanding of what he patronisingly and very generally infers (or the program notes infer) as the ‘Russian Spirit’. Jumping on the furniture does not a Russian make.
The hero of the night is the set which evolves surprisingly and imaginatively and received the warmest applause of the evening. But the use of the space shows no understanding of the grammar of the stage. The other hero of the evening is Ms Otto, whose ease, charm, grace and command shows that her stated affinity with the Slavic temperament is well founded. She has class, she has depth and her histrionics, when demanded by the play, are earned and deeply felt. She elicits respect as an artist and as the character. But she is not matched by her partners, who cavort in costume. As Chekhov said to Stanislavsky, they all need ‘an injection of sperm’.
Mr Gilshenan shows depth and gravitas in the lead as Alexei Turbin – he, together with Otto, appreciates the gravity of the situation in which the characters find themselves. However, in a play littered with comic opportunities, it seems perverse casting to use Mr Gilshenan in the straightest and soberest role in the play, when the evening is otherwise peppered with often amateur stabs at character comedy by other members of the company. I think Gilshenan will grow in the role, but his lack of physical and vocal stature impeded his command of a gallery of would-be clowns last night. Mr Covich impresses with Bolbutan, a vigorous brute of a man fighting for his nation and prepared to terrorise to do it. He added the vigour and sense of the given circumstances of brutalising war which were lacking in many others.
As Shervinsky, the oily opportunist and would-be opera star, Patrick Brammall wants to be liked, and has no sense of the depths of the creature he is playing, and the power of the truly compromised opportunistic turn-coat to charm, cajole and change like a chameleon…we see a charming Australian boy who wants to be loved. There is no sexual chemistry between Lena and he. She just appears to have unfortunate taste in men, as her husband, Talberg, seems like a suburban banker, rather than a cowardly but high-stakes player in diplomacy, and his continued attempts to illustrate strategy with knives and forks on the dining table, are clearly an actor moving props rather than having any depth of reasoning or impulse behind his actions. He cuts a pathetic and unconvincing figure, rather than a menacing one representing “these sick men who lead us”.
The characters of Myshlaevsky and Nikolai show promise of growth over coming days, though a heavily bearded Nikolai appears older than he should. His brain damaged and shattered self at the close of the play, is the only moment in which I felt an emotional connection with the stage. The character of Larion suffered a hideous beginning – desperate stabs at broad comedy, but grew in the course of the evening.
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To sum up my experience, the best use of space and most moving action occurs in the scene changes, with choral singing of Ukrainian songs led by Alan John, the sweeping confident use of the space, and the evolution of the set in surprising ways, lending a sense of the epic (design by Alice Babbage). But once the ‘action’ begins again the energy drops and fizzles.
The pronunciation is inconsistent and grating…’ochka’s and ‘ovitch’s stressed incorrectly and wince makingly. Do these people never ask?
I paid $70 for my ticket, plus $7 internet processing fee, and then $10 for the program, (this seems exorbitant for a first preview) which contained an infuriating and patronising page on how to get the “White Guard” experience…drink vodka, watch ‘Unfinished Piece for a Player Piano’, read Ukrainian poetry, eat borsht. Well, perhaps if I did the things suggested in the program, I might get more of a ‘White Guard’ experience than I did last night.
I heard patrons asking, “Why do we keep doing these long Russian things?” After last night, I wonder, and I know how great this play is, and that it is a fine adaptation. Sydney Theatre Company has a lot to answer for.
In summary – it’s all a great pity. Mr Upton can write a climax, can write a joke, can be sensitive to nuance and register…but only on the page. Our largest state theatre company is not a sand box in which the ill-experienced should make grandiose castles.
Some thoughts on the STC’s production of The White Guard, sent to a friend
We saw the STC production of ‘The White Guard’ last Friday, with great expectations: Bulgakov in Australia, at last. We left feeling deflated, sad for the actors, the designer and the director – all that talent and hard work. The audience – there were quite a few Russians incidentally – knew: one lone curtain call. Perhaps it was simply a matter of a flat night, but it failed to leave the ground. As we left a Russian said to his companion: ‘Heavily adapted’ (sil’no peredelali).
One is delighted that a major Bulgakov play should be staged here at last by a major company. Well done for that. But the production left me bemused as to what this play, so particular and specific in time, place and milieu (the tsarist officer caste), has to say to an Australian audience in 2011 – that in chaos and war some people show their mettle while others panic?
The production program and the publicity highlight the attractive Miranda Otto, implying that the play is built around her character, the 24– year old Yelena. It isn’t: it’s built around the whole family – and if anyone is dominant, it’s Aleksei Turbin. Like Bulgakov himself, and Chekhov, Aleksei is a doctor — he embodies the values of the old order, especially its virtues. Here the role is played by a comic actor of near genius, Darren Gilshenan, who was breathtaking, with William Zapper, in ‘The Government Inspector’. He brings distinction to this role too, if not quite the stature Bulgakov requires. Otto, who has given such fine cinematic performances, had grace, an impressive technique – clarity and timing – but on the night seemed to lack a compelling stage presence.
The blurb in the program is banal, and sets the bar of expectations high: ‘it’s charged with the real force of history and is all about the world, society and the individual in that daunting context’ – gimme a break. Or ‘…strangely not well known but totally and utterly accessible…it’s a lost classic’. What’s strange or lost about it? This is typical Anglo-Oz parochialism: in Europe Bulgakov has long been revered as among the very greatest of Russian writers; in Moscow there are tours of the places he lived, and to his grave, and the stairwell to one of the apartments he occupied has become a popular shrine for Moscow’s youth. But perhaps that’s what marketing requires today – which presumably also explains the focus on Otto. I for one felt no force of history wafting up to the back rows. Maybe if one were in the first 20 or so…
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Which leads to the space, the scale of the theatre and the inflexible proscenium. They hamstring the director before he even begins (why do we still build these ridiculous proscenia?). The scenes in the Turbin house are intimate, as in Chekhov, so they’d be far more successful in the Wharf Theatre (to be fair, some friends who were close to the stage had a very different impression from ours, but that just underlines the point). As it was, one was painfully aware of the cast projecting. And the set for the first and final acts, set in the Turbin house, was so narrow that natural movement was too obviously constricted. Acts 2 and 3, in the hetman’s office and the school, which spectacularly exploited the stage’s depth, were staged far more effectively. Indeed, we seemed to be in another production.
And the final scene, for me at least, failed to capture the epic quality of the tragedy, the horror of the fate that awaits these victims of history, a sense that Sokurov gets so powerfully in the final sequence of ‘The Russian Ark’. “…the light fades, becoming bleak, sombre, as if the sun has been concealed by cloud, the faces grow pale. This is a transparent allusion to the destiny that awaits the participants – most have danced for the last time, and the Russian ark has become in effect a house of the doomed, a house of ghosts.” Perhaps a similar visual metaphor might have helped.
Then there was the spectacle of Australian actors trying to ‘be Russian’: the result was pretty crude and unconvincing, with the tossing back of the vodka, the dancing on tables, lots of boisterous movement and barking delivery. A caricature was the result. In reality, for educated Russians, drinking vodka is a serious business, with strict rituals, and more so among military officers. To top it all, as the male cast changed sets between acts they sang, in very fine voice, with triple harmony, what appeared to be a Georgian chant. What has Georgia got to do with it? Why not something Russia, why not the stirring Russian battle hymn ‘Smelo my v boi poidyom’, which was actually sung by both sides in the Russian civil war? (here, sung by the Varlaam Monastery choir, with footage of the conflict)
http://youtu.be/7Mya-VnTurY
Still, high marks for courage and for introducing a major Russian play to the Australian audience. The director clearly is attracted by the Russian dramatic tradition. Given the wealth of acting talent in the company, perhaps he ought to have a crack at ‘The Lower Depths’. And if he does, Gorky specifies the song:
http://youtu.be/n6bWpidcnWM
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[Kyle Wilson studied Russian theatre and film in Moscow 1978-79 and 1988-92]
Interesting timing – I was going to write about Andrew Upton's writing in my next post – and will. Including his Cherry Orchard – I saw the film of the National Theatre production last Sunday. Great piece Kevin and some interesting comments to follow.
Thanks to the two comments from passionate theatre goers who are lovers of the proper attention to cultural details. That THE WHITE GUARD has been done is what one was truly grateful for, say us all. That it needs better thought through and convincing preparation and execution and that the general public are calling for it, might signify a new growth in maturity from the paying audience.
As the media shrinks the world so that we can attend through 'fast' media, performances in a local cinema (while it is current to the city of origin) of performing arts programs from The National Theatre, The Metropolitan Opera and other renowned companies, expectation of standards of production, direction and artist skills are being challenged and benchmarks raised.
THE WHITE GUARD is been measured against international comparisons. So is much else now. Near enough is no longer good enough any longer and we no longer can be fobbed off by Designers or Directors careless of their paying audiences experience.
That the recent THE SEAGULL production at Belvoir suffered seriously from limited viewing seats , with no explanation or apology or warning from Management, Board or the Artistic Directors, seems to suggest that this organisation does not value the competition and choices that their audience now have.
Kevin,
Your comparison of the two versions of the text enriches our understanding of the notions of 'adaptation' and 'translation' , and I thank you for it. It is , perhaps , particularly important right now , in the context of the recent Sydney productions of "The Seagull" and "The Wild Duck".( I understand Simon Stone was disappointed that the title "Duck Variations" had already been copywrighted.).Hearing Konstantin in "The Seagull" exclaim "You shit me!", or was it his mother's later outburst about her son being "such a little shit!", my companion turned to me and snapped "You can't call this Chekhov!" Of course , both Stone and Benedict Andrews carry the texts to times and places far from the imaginings of their creators. Andrew Upton doesn't startle us that way, but as you point out for us , he has given himself permission to hang chic new clothes on some old – and to most of us – unfamiliar bones. Judging from the textual excerpts in your review, what distinguishes Upton from earlier adapter Michael Glenny is his romanticism. In Glenny's version the enemy for Alexei Turbin is "the Bolsheviks" , but for Upton the REAL enemy is "modern man…this modern man with no name , no past , no love". He comes to the text with the modern knowledge that even Communism with all its fortifications passed into history ; perhaps that's why he has his character insist on a force beyond the Bolsheviks , something more daunting , something less easily nameable. Given what we know of twentieth century Russian history , with its epic murderous identification of class and personal enemies, Upton's vision is surprising, to say the least.
No such speculations whilst I watched the play…I was busy trying to work out what was really going on beneath the bluster… beyond the vodka.The set change from the first to the second scene had me wanting to applaud – who would have thought that there was so much space behind the Turbin living room , and how smoothly the actors carried the stack of furniture and props needed for the new setting.And they whistled while they worked – or rather: sang in honeyed harmonies.But by the time we got to the next scene change , and the singing set in again , i just wanted it to stop and for silence to reinforce the sense of the gravity of the characters' situation. Too often – as you,Kevin, and your other commentators have remarked – the production relied on unconvincing assertions of hearty 'Russianness' and on ear-battering delivery to impress us. Just as an occasional line from Mr Upton can break the reality of the Russian milieu (how about "don't get snarky with me!"), the actors too often gave vent to vowel sounds that belong on Summer Bay. Affecting moments were provided , thanks especially to the efforts of Ms Otto and Messrs Gilshenan, Piros and March . I must single out Mr March : Larion's 10.20 declaration of love to his beloved Yelena – his eyes ready to burst their sockets , his arms extended in fervent hope – revived my interest at a point where all hope seemed lost for both the White Russian and me.
A friend remarked that the production revived memories of O'Casey. This remark puzzled me , until I recalled the climactic moments of "The Plough and the Stars". Both plays take us to the humble engine-rooms of wrenching civil wars….
Thanks John for your insight and care.
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