The Promise, Trafalgar Studios, SW1 - review

A love triangle blossoms amid the bombs and sieges
p44 p45 Max Bennet (Marat) and Joanna Vanderham (Lika). Photo by Simon Kane.(354).jpg
21 November 2012

The Donmar Warehouse’s annual residency at the Trafalgar Studios gives graduates of its director training programme a chance to work with a full creative team to put on a mature, albeit small-scale production. This year’s trio of offerings gets under way with Alex Sims’s staging of Aleksei Arbuzov’s 1965 play The Promise, in a new version by Penelope Skinner.

The action opens in 1942, during the siege of what was then called Leningrad. Teenagers Lika and Marat shelter from the bombardment (a potent sound design by Emma Laxton): the grotty apartment they share used to be Marat’s home, but Lika has burnt nearly all the furniture, and the most striking feature now is a picture of Stalin on the wall.

Their relationship is abrasive, yet settles into something more congenial, only to be disrupted by the arrival of Leonidik, an aspiring poet who likes to speak of himself in the third person. A love triangle develops, with each character awkwardly dependent on the other two. At the same time they unite in a commitment to doing what they can 'for the good of the motherland'. Over the next 18 years their ideals fade and the dynamic between them alters significantly.

For a while Arbuzov was considered the Soviet Union’s leading dramatist. His writing is steeped in portentousness, as well as owing a fair amount to Chekhov. Cliffhangers are plentiful, the narrative is jumpy, and there's a certain clumsiness in conveying the passage of time.

Skinner, who last year won this paper’s award for most promising playwright, is able to revel in the way quirks of character impel the story. But she doesn’t get to riff at length about sex and gender politics – favourite subjects she usually handles adroitly. And in order to maintain Arbuzov’s interest in universal themes, she has to preserve some hammy lines such as ‘Are you tired of being alive?’

Sims directs confidently, creating moments of intensity. Max Bennett is excellent, fierce and angular as Marat, while Joanna Vanderham imbues Lika with the right mix of naivety, grace and gradually nurtured wisdom. Gwilym Lee evokes Leonidik's descent into sour impotence. All do a good job of suggesting their characters’ maturation. But Arbuzov treats the realities of political change rather hazily, youth is excessively idealized, and the mood strays towards sentimentality.

Until December 8 (0844 871 7627, donmarwarehouse.com)

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