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Writing for Us
A CurtainUp Review
The Power of Darkness
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I Can't do any more, Mama! Can't do any more! Have pity on me, please God, have pity. .— Nikita
You're so frightened, my darling, how you're shaking, task, task. Have a drop of vodka, my darling, to give you courage, a drop of vodka is all you need..— Matryona |
Angela Reed & Mark Alhadeff in The Power of Darkness
(Photo: Rahav Segev)
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No, this isn't Dallas meets Falcon Crest. It is the core plot of renowned Russian author Lev (Leo) Nikolayevitch Tolstoy's scarcely known and rarely produced play. Inspired by a real trial of a peasant in the province where Tolstoy lived, The Power of Darkness was written in 1886 but ran into difficulty with the Russian censors, most likely because of a brutal and horrifying scene of infanticide. Although it failed to get the backing of the Tsar, it received its world premiere in Paris in 1888 and had subsequent productions throughout Europe. It was eventually produced in Russia in 1895. Joseph Adler appeared in a Yiddish language adaptation in New York 1904. The Theater Guild presented a softened and abridged English language version in 1920.
Jonathan Banks, the artistic director of the Mint theater company has again resurrected a long neglected but eminently worthy play. This one stands unique in classical Russian dramatic literature. It arrives as a nice adjunct to Tom Stoppard's recent overview of philosophers and intellectuals in 19th century Russia, The Coast of Utopia. If Tolstoy will forever be remembered as the author of two great novels Anna Karenina and War and Peace (both adapted for film and stage), there was a stage adaptation of his story, "Strider: The Story of a Horse" that appeared on Broadway in 1980. To the best of my knowledge, Tolstoy authored only one play, Redemption, that opened on Broadway in 1918.
Despite its three-hour length, The Power of Darkness goes through its melodramatic convolutions with a concentrated passion and a relentless fervor that makes it hard not to become fully committed. Tolstoy's deep insight into human nature is felt in each of its earthy characters. The plot focuses on the compulsively driven machinations of Nikita (Mark Alhadeff), as he satisfies his lust at whim and selfishly pursues a better life. We watch him justify his amoral and adulterous behavior in a progression of scenes that are as emotionally harrowing as they are vividly demonstrative. The darkness of Nikita's unredeemable behavior, mostly as a sexual predator, is shocking and comes in the face of a family and in the midst of a community of presumably pious Russians. No one fails to bow and pray before the religious icons on the walls with every entrance, just as no one fails to down as much vodka as the occasion permits.
Will Nikita get his comeuppance only after he has succeeded in ruining the lives of those he has hurt and betrayed? Rest assured that it isn't going to come with the exposure of his sins for Tolstoy is obsessed with spiritual awakening and the potential of man to have a change of heart through a resurrection of conscience. The evidence of Tolstoy as a profound moralist penetrates but does not intrude in this play filled with the failings of common people, the details and routines of their daily life.
No one can blame Alhadeff for eliciting our contempt as he validates to himself his cruel, heartless, insensitive behavior in every scene. Angela Reed is a bundle of desperation and despair as Anisya, whose hate for her husband Pyotr (Peter Bretz) is matched by her hopelessly rash and misguided love for Nikita. But it is Nikita's mother Matryona, given an insidiously veiled portrayal by Randy Danson, who takes the cake for pure Machiavellian deviltry. Under Martin Platt's firm directorial guidance, (he also did the adaptation), a large cast defines the temperaments of the times and the place with credibility.
Purists may take exception to the translation that occasionally makes the dialogue sound perhaps more crude and scabrous than it was originally. But who knows? What matters is that the play transcends the depressing aspects of its story to invoke Tolstoy's concern for the absolution of our sins.
Especially fine among the support players are Steve Brady, as Nikita's uncomplicated and religious father who sees through his son's despicable behavior; Jeff Steitzer, as Mitritch, a resolutely stubborn old laborer; Anne Letscher and Jennifer Bissell, as the older and younger step-daughters; and Letitia Lange, as Marina, the orphan seduced and abandoned by Nikita.
Bill Clark's rustic setting, the interior of a large peasant hut is effortlessly changed into a yard, threshing barn, and root cellar, and Holly Poe Durbin's costumes suggest the ambiance and the lack of affluence of mid-19th century peasantry. Jeff Nellis' expert lighting keeps the lights on some pretty dark doings.
This is an opportunity to see an engrossing play fueled not only by the power of Tolstoy's theme but empowered by a rigorously conscientious production. The Power of Darkness though not recognized as being among the best in the Russian canon, has every right to claim a place there.
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Like Simon, I was completely absorbed by this grim and gritty portrait of the banality of evil Russian style. The three hours whizzed by with not a single temptation to check my watch.
While darkness does indeed prevail, this production is not without its humorous moments. With business headlines awash in talk about interest rates and former Federal Reserve Czar Alan Greenspan all over the home screen plugging his memoir, one scene adds an especially hilarious comic touch. It's an interchange in the last scene before the intermission, when the gruff old soldier Mitrich tries to educate Nikita's pious father Akim on this subject. He couches his economics lesson in an example of a farmer borrowing ten ruples from a friend to see him through the planting season but having to repay the loan with three extra ruples. He brushes aside Akim's protest that this is against God's wishes by expanding the example to describe a woman who has some money lying around and asks the man who turned ten ruples into thirteen to make some interest with her money and he then makes another loan, but with her money. As Mitrich sums this up "Well, then — that's what a bank is. It's a clever business- it doesn't make anything that's useful — there's no hide, there's no milk, there's no meat to feed you at the end of the day. It's just money made out of money." Maybe Jonathan Bank ought to invite Mr. Greenspan to take a break from his book tour to see The Power of Darkness. Set designer Bill Clarke also deserves an extra round of applause not just for the amazingly smooth transitions from indoor to outdoors but for the way he has transformed the entire theater into Tolstoy's landscape, with the walls and support poles wrapped in a birch tree-like fabric. Mint fans will also want to mark their calendar for October 29th to catch a special one-night reading of another Russian work, The Bachelor by Ivan Turgenev. It will be directed by Jason Butler Harner who spent last season as Turgenev in The Coast of Utopia. The next fully staged play will be the first production of Ernest Hemingway's The Fifth Column, not the heavily edited version you may have seen, but the original. It will be directed by the Mint's own Jonathan Bank. |
| THE POWER OF DARKNESS by Leo Tolstoy Directed by Martin Platt Cast: Mark Alhadeff, Lisa Altomare, Jennifer Bissell, Steve Brady, Randy Danson, Scott Freeman, Anne Letscher, Peter Levine, Angela Reed, Jeff Steitzer, and Alok Tewari. Set design: Bill Clarke Costume design: Holly Poe Durbin Lighting design: Jeff Nellis Music: Ellen Mandel Mint Theater, 311 West 43rd Street, 3rd floor www.minttheater.org or 212/315-0231 From 9/06/07 through 10/28/07—extended to 11/04/07; opening 10/24/07. Reviewed by Simon Saltzman on September 18th |
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