Anne McElvoy<\/a><\/p>\n 21 September, 2015<\/p>\n Turgenev\u2019s epic study of Russian rural doldrums, A Month in the Country<\/em>, often runs to four hours on stage \u2014 so long that, as a Russian theatre critic once sighed to me, it can feel like two months in the stalls. Patrick Marber, playwright-turned-adapter, wisely chose not to subject the National Theatre\u2019s audience to that. He has culled the story of love and heartache among the landed classes of the mid-19th century to just over two hours in a production intelligently stripped back to its essentials. But the spine of the story remains \u2014 an intergenerational comedy of errors, based on infatuation with a newcomer shared between a mother and her stepdaughter.<\/p>\n Gone are the lush, naturalistic productions of the 19th-century motherland \u2014 here the landscape is as grey as a winter morning on the steppes and most of the cast remain on stage, watching the action when not participating in the emotional turmoil of a backwater estate perking up when a newcomer rolls into town.<\/p>\n Amanda Drew\u2019s Natalya is a grade-A troublemaker, first guiding her ward Vera (Lily Sacofsky) to the attention of the hapless young tutor Belayev (Royce Pierreson), only to plot to marry her off to a vile local squire and nab the house guest for herself. This is only mildly absorbing. As so often in Turgenev, it is the woes of the older generation that move us most. The marvellous John Simm shines as Natalya\u2019s sarcastic admirer, and Mark Gatiss as the roguish local doctor crashes his way through a thoroughly unromantic proposal while prostrate with back pain. <\/p>\n Marber\u2019s satirical gift is on show in the whip-smart exchanges between the characters. We do lose something of the feeling of immersion in sadness which is so crucial to Russian drama. But if Turgenev is Chekhov\u2019s tougher, younger sibling in terms of the greater harshness of his outlook, that is well reflected here.\u00a0 <\/p>\n One of the most troubling, fascinating plays I have seen this year is Duncan MacMillan\u2019s new work on addiction, People, Places and Things <\/em>at the National\u2019s snug Dorfman Theatre. On the face of it, it is a story about the turbulence of drug addiction and the hard path back to abstinence. More importantly, it pricks our conscience about the fine line between compulsive behaviour that is rewarded, from workaholism to pursuit of professional or financial success, and that which we pathologise.<\/p>\n Emma (a raging Denise Gough) is by turns attractive, wheedling and confrontational with her long-suffering therapist. There are, she points out, \u201csubstances\u00a0 I can put into my bloodstream that make the world perfect\u201d, and the reason she is resisting is that \u201cyou want to take it away from me\u201d. That perfectly inverted logic might come from Hamlet<\/em>.<\/p>\n Jeremy Herrin\u2019s fast-paced direction complements Bunny Christie\u2019s chilly modern therapy-centre set. Emma\u2019s hallucinations are by turns beautiful and fearsome: a Greek bacchanal for the 21st century. But has she become addicted because a sober response to the world is too hard for some people to bear? Or because she seeks to externalise blame for weaknesses and self-indulgence? That questioning balance is fin-ally held throughout and MacMillan is perceptive on the way 12-step programmes echo the paths to redemption of religious faiths.<\/p>\n He is the lesser-known half of the team (with Robert Icke) that adapted Orwell\u2019s 1984 for the stage and in People, Places and Things<\/em> he deploys the same aptitude for depicting extreme psychological stress in a way that speaks to us halfway-normal audiences. If the boot on the face here is chemical, the distress is just as palpable \u2014 and brilliantly conveyed. <\/p>\n Finally, you didn\u2019t think I would leave Standpoint<\/em>\u2019s Cumberbatch-worshippers without a word on his Hamlet<\/em> \u2014 the seminal play about mental imbalance and its relationship to the outside world? As Nick Kenyon, the Barbican\u2019s cheery boss, put it to me, nothing could go wrong with the venture, since it was a commercially unsinkable product. Cumberbatch\u2019s extraordinary popularity as the BBC\u2019s obsessive-compulsive eye candy in Sherlock <\/em>ensured disproportionately female scrapping for tickets.<\/p>\n Cumberbatch acknowledged the difficulties of acting under such pressure when he begged his fans not to film the recording, after having been distracted by glowing red lights in previews. Since then, the performance has rounded and improved. We meet the prince rooting in distraction through his possessions with an old turntable crackling in the background \u2014 and a mood of edgy distraction is Cumberbatch\u2019s keynote. <\/p>\n Purists will not like the shifting around of text \u2014 it comes to something when \u201cTo be or not to be\u201d has to be restored to its rightful place after chaotic previews. Conceptually, the production is a mess, veering hard between ironic reprising of familiar lines, acted as if in quotes from a school textbook, and urgent feeling. Pent-up energy and underlying despair are, however, Cumberbatch\u2019s strengths as an actor, and the most moving moments are when he makes the vast Barbican stage a panopticon of human suffering and mortal malaise. <\/p>\n Even an actor of his charisma, however, often struggles to prevail over the sundry distractions heaped in the show. Es Devlin\u2019s design is imposing but accompanied by too much slow-motion and too many freeze frames. Hamlet <\/em>is a busy enough saga without overloading it with so many gizmos, even for a production\u00a0 squarely aimed at cyber-age audiences. <\/p>\n I liked Lyndsey Turner\u2019s fevered Elsinore: no cold fortress, more a stately home, full of the diversions of prolonged adolescence. Hamlet wears a David Bowie T-shirt and coat with \u201cKing\u201d emblazoned on it, while Ophelia (Sian Brooke) pursues her love affair as an obsessive, self-centred youth \u2014 a harsh interpretation, but nicely turned. Ciaran Hinds\u2019s Claudius is restrained and upright and Anastasia Hille\u2019s Gertrude pleasingly neurotic, behind the grimacing mask of royalty.<\/p>\n What\u2019s not to like? The action speeds by, as well it might after a cut to under three hours, rendering some of the Dane\u2019s internal deliberations a shortish memo-to-self. The production\u2019s bankable star shines throughout. It is a very good Hamlet<\/em>, but without the precision or clarity of vision to be an outstanding one.<\/p>\n It does, however, show Shakespearean potential in Sherlock. He should try a second-tier Shakespeare drama, without the whizz-bang distractions, and show us that the nation\u2019s tormented heartthrob can do more than the other big guy\u2019s greatest hit.<\/p>\n <\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n\n
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Infectious enthusiasms<\/a><\/p>\nWhat to read next<\/h6>\n
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