BLINDED TO WHAT’S COMING THEIR WAY
Hilary Fannin’s Gorky revamp explores the dangers of being out of touch
Hilary Fannin’s new play, the third in the Abbey Gregory Project, does a revamp of Maxim Gorky’s 1905 work about an upper middle-class family down on its uppers and faced with the social upheavals that eventually led to the overthrow of Russia’s aristocracy and the horrors of Stalinist brutality.
The production is also a 40th anniversary celebration for the redoubtable Rough Magic Company.
Children of the Sun is a tragicomic look into the difference between theory, hope reality, ambition and incompetence.
It’s very much the story of people so wrapped up in their own existence that they don’t realise their world is about to collapse.
There’s a great deal of talk about art and beauty, science and the nature of time (‘the last frontier’), but there’s no worthwhile activity.
Meanwhile the house is almost lost and angry crowds are gathering at the gate. The sound of clocks ticking appear to spell out the fact that the devil’s got their number.
This is a visually impressive production. The expansive set comprises four layers that allow smooth onstage movement, and the second acts pulls out all the stops on colour, contrast and sound that flip the story through time with some hard rock musical bursts that seem aimed at covering up the lack of genuine dramatic content.
Would-be scientific genius Pavel Protasov spends his life protesting about the importance of his work though he’s inclined to go in for lofty plans that he’s incapable of carrying out in practice.
In fact his time is taken up with dodgy lab equipment that causes unpleasant smells and leads the local people to believe he’s poisoning the area.
He’s six months behind in his rent and expects his wife Elena to look after everything practical, while he ignores her and she is lusted after by the rough-spoken local vet.
Admittedly, Protasov is not totally heartless: he believes that Elena is ‘loveable’. And he has no feeling for words, referring to the pretentious photographer who’s ‘preparing to render my wife’.
He’s incapable of confronting anyone about their behaviour and accepts that his worker Yegor beats up his wife… but what really matters is that he’s vital for fixing equipment.
Protasov and his sister Lisa have stories of difficult childhoods and accounts of rough treatment suffered as children. Lisa has mental problems, strange visions and predictions, although she’s arguably the most mentally sound member of the family.
The first act is a sharp, witty and entertaining look at the Protasov family and acquaintances, and the effects of Protasov’s lifestyle on them all.
The family, with its persistent problems, could slot easily into any Chekhov play, but the racy dialogue lessens the gloom and lends a more modern touch to the production.
The second act is disappointing. It almost comes across as an afterthought lacking dramatic effect, with overuse of monologues adding very little to what we’ve already heard and expected.
‘Second acts pulls out all the stops on colour, contrast and sound’
But in the character and language of the landlord’s son, it expands on the crudity of the modern Russian oligarchs who can even play the field for possession of English soccer teams. And Gorky, who was imprisoned during the 1905 rebellion, is himself hauled onstage to be rapped on the knuckles for his contribution to Stalin’s gulag atrocities.
Fiona Bell gives a memorable comic performance as the predatory widow Melania, who has an unashamed beam on stealing Protasov as a new husband. Her late husband was a butcher ‘by trade and by nature’.
Along with Stuart Graham’s self-obsessed and emotionally insulated Protasov, there are a number of outstanding performances, including John Cronin as Vagin, ‘artistic adviser to the rich and tasteless’, a pretentious photographer who lays on the verbal guff about artistic photography; Aislín McGuckin as the unappreciated Elena, and Brian Doherty as Chepurnoy the vet, also doubling as Gorky.
‘Racy dialogue lessens the gloom and lends a more modern touch’