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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Sept 3, 2019 22:51:35 GMT
They refer to Putin by his forenames, Vladimir Vladimirovich. Given his tole in outrages like this, of course it’s him. Making one of the world’s most dangerous leaders into a fun character? For me, that’s a terrible mistake in tone.
EDIT: Purely for information - other European countries not brutally subjugated in the last seventy years also include Iceland (basically the UK just rocked up and used them during WWII, so that’s borderline), Sweden, Republic of Ireland and Switzerland. Spain and Portugal were neutral in WWII but they did have to cope with Franco and Salazar’s fascist regimes during that time. Also, residents of the Channel Islands were brutally subjugated by their Nazi invaders, not being part of the UK but very much connected.
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Post by NorthernAlien on Sept 4, 2019 17:59:20 GMT
Saw this for a very good price in the matinee this afternoon (£15).
There's a lot going on here. A lot. There's been an attempt to cram in every single plot point that might be relevant so that you get a good overview of the political situation in Russia when Litvinyenko (sp?) was finding himself sliding ever deeper into the KGB/FSB quagmire. It all becomes a little bewildering. It's now running at around 2 hours 30 minutes, plus interval.
I applaud the directorial and creative vision which has managed to stage all the different scenes here - technically this is a real achievement.
The production portrays him as 'just a detective', and as a bloke just trying to reveal the truth. I suspect the real story of his life and his work to be much more complex and nuanced, and also suspect given the nature of it, that we'll never know the absolute truth. He's played as an affable chap who stuff just sort of seems to happen to, which again I suspect to be a simplification of the truth for the purposes of narrative ease.
A small amount of audience participation involves those sat on what I think was row B of the stalls, and three people House Left at the front of the stalls.
Ticket wise I had K22 in the stalls - as I say, on a massive discount, and a fiver less than the website was saying as I bought it in person at the box office (I had also checked before I left the house and so knew to ask if it was still available (and it was a single seat on it's own!)). The view was great, the seat leaned back a little more than I expected but the legroom was fine.
There are of course fun and games with the bathroom facilities at the moment, but the temporary facilities are fine.
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Post by katurian on Sept 4, 2019 21:28:10 GMT
That was one part that didn't really work for me, as if it was all there just to lead to a poorly done magic trick towards the end (which I saw coming a mile off). Can I ask what the Shearsmith magic trick was? I was at the performance tonight and can't work out what part this was! {Spoiler - click to view}Unless you mean that he turned out to be one of the white boiler suit crew packing up the dead body near the end?
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Post by Dr Tom on Sept 4, 2019 22:27:13 GMT
That was one part that didn't really work for me, as if it was all there just to lead to a poorly done magic trick towards the end (which I saw coming a mile off). Can I ask what the Shearsmith magic trick was? I was at the performance tonight and can't work out what part this was! {Spoiler - click to view}Unless you mean that he turned out to be one of the white boiler suit crew packing up the dead body near the end? Yes, that’s the one I meant. Largely misdirection, but the set up was so slow and obvious when this should be snappy.
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Post by youngoffender on Sept 6, 2019 9:40:23 GMT
And the first reviews are in: ***** WOS ***** The Stage **** Guardian **** Times *** Evening Standard
I'm with the ES, very much a 3-star show for me - an intriguing approach, but half-cooked and deeply flawed. The notion that it deserves 5, a rating that should logically be applied only to an unimprovable masterpiece, is laughable. This kind of grade inflation does theatre no favours whatsoever. It might tempt punters into the show, but it just sets them up to be disappointed by the reality that this is, in the end, just a moderately engaging night out, and that their time would more profitably have been spent with another couple of episodes of Mindhunter.
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Post by NeilVHughes on Sept 6, 2019 9:46:24 GMT
Favourable to excellent reviews all round.
I enjoyed the play and the breaking of the fourth wall and the subversion of the narrative was an interesting concept, on the whole I found most of it a distraction to the central story which was not strong enough to stand on its own.
The central tenet that our Government was not willing to hamper its perceived relationship with Russia and did not apply the rule of law was drowned out by the entertainment.
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Post by andrew on Sept 6, 2019 10:02:30 GMT
The notion that it deserves 5, a rating that should logically be applied only to an unimprovable masterpiece, is laughable I wouldn't have given it 5 stars either, but that is definitely not a definition of a 5 star show that I'd subscribe to. 5 stars for me is 'excellent theatre', something that I really thoroughly enjoyed, not necessarily something that is some kind of holy unimpeachable orgasm of a theatrical event. I'm not sure if I've ever seen something that was an unimprovable masterpiece, I'd be curious to know what you've put into that category. Star ratings are clearly a subjective thing, to be applied and interpreted as you will, and I don't think you can ever criticise someone for applying a higher rating than you personally would. We all have different tastes, we all care about different things and see shows in different ways, and if someone wants to give AVEP their highest rating, I don't personally find that laughable.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Sept 6, 2019 10:40:58 GMT
Different people like different things, that's all. The story wasn't new to me but others won't have followed it as closely, my political views make me less likely to warm to it being played for laughs than it would for others and my fringe theatregoing means that the style of it isn't new to me, whereas for others it will be fresher. Reviews are just a personal view and depend on differing circumstances; they aren't, taken individually, an indication of quality.
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Post by NeilVHughes on Sept 6, 2019 11:59:06 GMT
24hr TodayTix £15 offer available for anyone interested in seeing this.
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Post by youngoffender on Sept 6, 2019 19:13:42 GMT
5 stars for me is 'excellent theatre', something that I really thoroughly enjoyed, not necessarily something that is some kind of holy unimpeachable orgasm of a theatrical event. I'm not sure if I've ever seen something that was an unimprovable masterpiece, I'd be curious to know what you've put into that category. Admittedly, any five-point scale is a blunt instrument and allows little room for nuance, but my benchmarks would broadly be: * Tripe, a total waste of my time ** Poor to mediocre; flaws substantially outweigh any redeeming elements *** Creditable to good; there may be elements of excellence balanced by significant faults **** Excellent all round, a thoroughly rewarding experience ***** Stupendous, transcendent, unforgettable By those criteria, of course there's hardly anything that I have ever given 5. This year I think Downstate came close, and that's the best thing I have seen on the stage for years. As I see it, the problem with using 5 stars as a benchmark for mere 'excellence' is that you then have nowhere to go on the very rare occasions when you see something truly exceptional. And allowing for a range of taste, I just don't see how A Very Expensive Poison - script, performances, or production - could reasonably be described in those terms.
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Post by londonpostie on Sept 6, 2019 21:07:46 GMT
I'd love to see age demographics on this one. Surprised Billington gave it 4. I suspect he rounded up ..
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Post by Dr Tom on Sept 6, 2019 21:29:12 GMT
I'd love to see age demographics on this one. Surprised Billington gave it 4. I suspect he rounded up .. I'd say there was a wide range of ages when I saw it. Skewed younger than a lot of Old Vic productions.
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Post by theatrelover123 on Sept 7, 2019 11:30:57 GMT
All stalls and dress Circle tickets appear to have been reduced to £20 for today’s matinee. Including premiums. So worth grabbing a bargain if you can.
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Post by londonpostie on Sept 7, 2019 22:17:44 GMT
I found myself briefly in Aldershot last week and this was advertised in posters at the train station.
I did wonder how long someone at the Old Vic had poured over railway lines serving Waterloo and how far down the line/s they venture with advertising.
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Post by Jon on Sept 10, 2019 14:43:55 GMT
I quite liked this, it's certainly a theatrical telling of a tragic story which makes you laugh one minute but punches you in the gut the next.
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Post by vickyg on Sept 16, 2019 12:38:50 GMT
I quite liked this, it's certainly a theatrical telling of a tragic story which makes you laugh one minute but punches you in the gut the next. Completely agree. Saw this on Saturday and I don't think I've really seen anything like it. The way they did the ending was very emotive.
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Post by dlevi on Sept 20, 2019 8:37:59 GMT
I thought this was a hot mess of a play. At one point early on I was thinking that Lucy Prebble, John Crowley and designer Tom Scutt have thrown everything but the Kitchen sink into this evening and then lo and behold out came the kitchen sink! I simply didn't understand the point of the evening. The story is compelling to be sure, but by explaining things through puppetry, truly awful songs, an inconsistent design scheme and scattershot performances ( except Tom Brooke and MyAnna Buring who were good throughout) the evening simply seemed long and pointless. Or rather, maybe it was produced too soon - and needed to be workshopped a couple of times so that the creatives involved could discover what it was they actually wanted to say.
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Post by Forrest on Sept 20, 2019 9:11:31 GMT
My impressions on this were somewhere in between the praise it seems to be getting, and the few scattered full-on disappointments.
I appreciated the creativity of it and though Prebble's decision to make a comedy/parody of a serious event was artistically very brave. There were also some elements to it that I've found interesting, such as the time/space overlaps during the investigation, which were beautifully done. But, for all of its flaunting spectacle, the production gave me very little to connect with: I didn't genuinely feel for the characters, which is what Prebble keeps repeating she wanted to happen (she has been presenting it framed mostly as a love story), so for me in that respect it obviously missed the mark. I also (like you dlevi) found the singing and the dancing and the fur and the confetti completely unnecessary to the story and the point she was trying to get across. The narrative element of it (the Putin character) also felt quite intrusive at times, not adding to the action on stage, but distracting from it (and I completely failed to grasp the point of Lugovoi's speech about Russia). Somehow it all just didn't work particularly well for me as a whole.
But my biggest issue with the production/text was the humour: i found it quite basic, more rooted in mockery of all things Russian than in anything else, not really up to the task of telling a story as important as this one. The cartoon(ish) villain sort of portrayals of the killers, the banal character of Berezovsky, the "Only Fools and Horses" reminiscent family settings of the Litvinenkos and the FSB... Somehow, despite all of the obvious effort that went into it, the end result was underwhelming.
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Post by lynette on Sept 20, 2019 13:15:30 GMT
A few people I know have seen this since I have so a bit of chat going on and the general consensus seems to be that there is a good play here buried under the polemic.
One thing that has bugged me since is the speech by the Putin character in which he tells us that 20,000,000 Russians died in WWII [ am I remembering that correctly?] Yes, indeed, we know that and without going into a history lecture here, we know that the Russians held the Eastern front while the Allies sorted themselves out to attack the Western..we know, we really do know that [ and wow what they got for that, a big big price, half of Europe] but it doesn’t excuse poisoning someone in such a vile way. So what does Prebble want us to think? That the Russians have their reasons or that we are stupid?
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Post by londonpostie on Sept 20, 2019 18:23:50 GMT
The UK built monuments in every town and village, workplaces as well, having suffered deaths of approx. 2% of general population in WW1 and 1% in WW2. The Soviets lost about 15%, concentrated among the the western populatios of the Union.
Some historians say the ratio of German dead on the eastern front compared to the western was 9:1, others say 8:1. The Eastern Front was over 1,000 miles in length. The Soviets bled Nazi Germany dry.
It's generally regarded now to be in the region of 27 million Soviet deaths. The UK lost 700K on WW1 and 450K in WW2.
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Post by MrBunbury on Sept 20, 2019 18:57:48 GMT
A few people I know have seen this since I have so a bit of chat going on and the general consensus seems to be that there is a good play here buried under the polemic. One thing that has bugged me since is the speech by the Putin character in which he tells us that 20,000,000 Russians died in WWII [ am I remembering that correctly?] Yes, indeed, we know that and without going into a history lecture here, we know that the Russians held the Eastern front while the Allies sorted themselves out to attack the Western..we know, we really do know that [ and wow what they got for that, a big big price, half of Europe] but it doesn’t excuse poisoning someone in such a vile way. So what does Prebble want us to think? That the Russians have their reasons or that we are stupid? I think you are a bit unfair, Lynette. The character making the speech is Lugovoi, not Putin. It is a fact that Russians lost 25 million people during the Great Patriotic War (our World War II) and the real turning point of the war was Stalingrad, and not Normandy. The US got indirectly control over the other half of Europe after the war with much less losses but we don't comment on that because they are "our" kind of allies. Of course what happened in the Second World War does not justify Litvinenko's murder or the murky behaviour of the Russian government, but I don't think that Prebble is saying that. She gives Lugovoi the chance to explain his alleged point on why Russian aggressive behaviour may derive from the trauma of the Second World War; it does not stand scrutiny in the context of Litvinenko's murder but there is some truth in saying that the West has conveniently minimized the Russian contribution to the end of the Second World War. Instead I wonder why polonium-210 was used to poison Litvinenko since it could be traced back to Russia so easily? Was it a demonstration to other secret services or governments that they could do it? I also wonder how many other murders, committed with more skill and appropriate by secret services from Russia and our own countries, have happened under our nose. Maybe it is better not to know!
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Post by theglenbucklaird on Sept 21, 2019 8:41:55 GMT
I quite liked this, it's certainly a theatrical telling of a tragic story which makes you laugh one minute but punches you in the gut the next. Completely agree. Saw this on Saturday and I don't think I've really seen anything like it. The way they did the ending was very emotive. Agreed. I thought this was good, clever and told a story in a way I have not seen in the theatre. Liked the humour and song more than I thought. Staging was really good and liked the Mr President character also. Myanna Buring and Tom Brooke were both excellent. Very moving end to the play
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Post by david on Sept 26, 2019 11:02:24 GMT
Having attended yesterday’s matinee, overall a very entertaining and informative afternoon spent at the OV. Tom Brooke and MyAnna Burling as the Litvineko’s were excellent and it was nice to learn something about the actual people involved as well as the actual events and how they unfolded (the bits such as events outside the UK that were not reported in the UK media at the time). Though as others have commented, maybe having a bit more substance as to the reasons as why certain events occurred the way they did would have been a useful addition to this production. The more surreal moments (such as the puppets and songs) as well as Reece Shearsmith as the President and the two hapless assassins for me did work and brought a little light relief to the more darker elements to this story.
The creative decision to break the 4th wall was an interesting one, though I felt that the production was at its best when done as a straight forward drama. The ending was certainly a powerful and emotive one.
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Post by sf on Sept 29, 2019 10:08:26 GMT
I saw it yesterday afternoon, and didn't love it. It struck me as a superb production of a mediocre play, with a few very good performances. The second act is better than the first, which too often plays like a staging of a Wikipedia article; overall, given the story, I was hoping for something with a bit more bite.
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Post by Nicholas on Oct 11, 2019 12:14:33 GMT
Monday was Vladimir Putin’s 67th birthday, and the 13th anniversary of the unsolved murder of Anna Politkovskaya. Wednesday would have been Boris Nemtsov’s 60th birthday.
Seems an appropriate time to talk about this comedy!
(In advance, because there’s a LOT to chew on, this write-up is much too long and all over the place. Hey, that’s in keeping with the play! I decided not to trim down, just because (smug git that I am) I’m pretty chuffed with it, but in trying to place it both in a theatrical and political context there’s a lot that’s contentious, so apologies if it’s OTT)
At best, this gives Litvinenko not just justice after death, but a brief and beautiful second life. At worst, this laughs with, not just at, the men and monsters who committed this crime. A Very Expensive Poison is a tremendous mess – sometimes just tremendous, sometimes just messy. But how do you literalise a world like this? Like this? Prebble’s answer is to, well, adapt every part in every possible way. It’s amazing that one of our biggest most historic theatres plays host to this hearing of that verdict, and amazing that they actually put that man, at his worst, on stage. It’s a shame that the play around it is the mess it is. Overall I actually hugely enjoyed it. The problem is in tackling so explicitly such a terrifying moment of contemporary history, and putting THOSE real people on stage, Prebble and Crowley make us demand more than enjoyment: they make us demand answers, demand justice, demand closure, demand humanity. Fun though this is, they don’t quite succeed.
Aptly enough, this is at its best when focused on Litvinenko himself. I do think, after Enron, The Effect, this challenge, and great TV performances, Lucy Prebble is a form of a genius – and that’s on display in her political savvy here. She’s at her best when recreating more solid ground here. Young Russia – of old traditions, new ways of living, and Litvinenko’s secret service asking “to KGB or not to KGB” – gives her JUST ENOUGH to exaggerate: paranoia, betrayal, and patriotism but to what? She wisely sidesteps any Le Carre clichés (and I love Le Carre) for a paranoia that works, however exaggerated. Even when puppets invade Litvinenko’s flat, Soviet sing-songs occur, or we’re reminded of the truth of Soviet history, they stand for something – the TV and the state. There’s a lot of exposition (it’s indisputably overlong), but in initially portraying the Litvinenkos as ordinary emigrants, then extraordinary young Russians in young Russia, the tone – almost Gilliamesque – absolutely serves the story.
However, as it evolves to cover, well, everything, the play stops being, well, something. For swathes of Litvinenko’s life story, he’s ignored so the oligarchy can exposit, his killers can comically naff off, and minor compatriots entertain us more than he does. When Prebble and Crowley’s style can be comic, Kafka-esque, or Russophobic, it is – then style absolutely overtakes substance. The spider’s web this play weaves, with oligarchs and politicians and police all entangling this moralistic spy at the centre, unravels as it tries on a different style to serve each different character; the centre cannot hold, and our hero ends up ignored.
Nonetheless, this exaggerated bonkersness largely entertains, even if it detracts from the truth. At best it serves it – how better to literalise the flawed masculinity than a giant golden penis? – but often it feels like, as the true story grows outrageous, the play can’t keep up. I was reminded of Chimerica – an absurd political world beyond most of us, thearicalised as abstract and arch, steeped in traditions of Kafka, but also doing the reality of the system justice through clear delineation and real surprising heart. Chimerica’s bonkers stagecraft was unforgettable, but anchored by two rich lead characters who were never lost by Kirkwood’s plot. Here, Prebble serving every master individually and not our protagonist – the character who most needs serving – the play can’t be what it is at its best – a study of Litvinenko’s character, and how that character led to this mystery and this tragedy. The play can’t have a moment as moving as Benedict Wong fraught and alone. This overdid the abstraction, and left its characters at sea. Structurally, this is a mess, and I couldn’t help but feel it’s the characters who suffer.
This feels particularly unfortunate, as the play is (nominally) based around Marina Litvinenko. For hours of the second half, she’s barely there (instead we watch the assassins fart around for kicks), which strikes me as at best a structural issue and at worst a thematic mistake. By focusing on her, the politics of the play matter doubly. By thus ignoring her heart and soul for Inspector Clouseau muck-ups with the assassins – by giving them richer characters and home lives than she had – Prebble does both Alexander and Marina a disservice.
If this were simply an excuse to restate the verdict and restage the crime, this would still be an excellent play tackling the institutionalised cruelty of the Putin regime and demanding justice for Litvinenko – and a Nicholas Kent-esque trial would have been enough – and perhaps making it male-only would skewer the strange masculinity Putin plays into and Prebble superficially explores; therefore, perhaps Marina shouldn’t even be in the play at all. Better, instead, she should be in EVERY moment, to remind us of the human cost to these atrocities – thus her absence is a problem. Proving the Putin government is corrupt is important, and reading out that verdict on a West End stage is bold and brilliant – it’s also like hearing that the sh*tter in the woods was… that bear. Reminding us that this corruption hurts living innocent bystanders, tears apart families, causes daily pain – that is profound, and this is something only a playwright can do. The meta-fictional audience participation at the end, instead, even has Marina replaced on stage by MyAnna Buring (who is, incidentally, very good). Due to her inclusion it’s a celebration of everything she still stands for; due to her often exclusion it’s a messy play that’s often left ignored.
The murderers fit an easier stage trope. Prebble and Crowley (perhaps particularly Crowley) clearly enjoy playing them off as comic, as in the tradition of dumb double acts. Now, is that a bad thing: an irrelevant, irreverent take? I hope this isn’t an unfair thing to say, but (to get tin-foil-hatty) one of Putin’s tactics is to make his crimes seem absurd. For many (including most Russians), the sight of two assassins telling such blatant, absurd lies about snow in ‘beautiful’ Salisbury was morally outrageous. For those in Russia who bought into it, what could they do but enjoy the absurdity…
Is portraying these two as the NoviChockle Brothers, thus, in keeping with the strange (and sick) satire these events provoke? If so, it’s oddly brilliant, but needs A LOT more context. Is it, instead, to satirise them, and to make us see the violence of the Putin regime as nonsensical but cruel? If so, it’s a bit wishy-washy – neither assassin seems cruel, which seems a mistake, when they’re assassins murdering our play’s hero; the satire doesn’t skewer the system. Is it, oddly, to make them and the setting likeable? If so, it works – but to the play’s detriment, and to Litvinenko’s detriment. As farceurs, Prebble and Crowley make the point that the assassins were bungling, but they make this simple point early on; having so many scenes of them, they instead end up celebrated. Some of the satire works, but when it comes to satirising VVP himself it’s a wee bit aimless then a wee bit toothless, perhaps because his leadership is both beyond satire and too cruel to satirise, and when it comes to these two, it over-enjoys it.
The final embodiment of where this succeeds and fails is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. First things first – Lucy Prebble dramatises Putin, Crowley directs him, Shearsmith exquisitely performs him and Warchus let it happen. All of that is EXTRAORDINARY and they all deserve absolute admiration. However, the way in which he was re-enacted deserves very serious contemplation.
At first, I thought Shearsmith’s performance as Putin was exceptional. It was far, far, far from imitation – the KGB precision replaced with palpable, nervous uncertainty, not costumed up by any means – but by visualising this aspect of his governing something true is revealed. Putin was just a low-rung politician bought in to be uncontroversial, and largely DID make it up as he went along. He still does. Putin, a half-decent actor, plays the Soviet hardman, but arguably in actuality is more President Schwarzenegger than President Stierlitz. Literalising that aspect – a terrible imitation but an expert characterisation – seemed the best way to portray him.
As the history chugged on, however, and Putin developed from nervous middleman to killer head of state, the show didn’t know what to do with him, except have him heckle in the balcony like a sinister Statler and Waldorf. Exaggerate this uncertainty? Replace it with faux-exactitude? Make us fear him? Laugh at him? Ridicule him? Even like him? All of these. Called Vladimir Vladimirovich in the play and The President in the programme and occupying Putin’s place in history, but the word ‘Putin’ deliberately avoided, this was having its cake and eating it. Not being ‘Putin’ per se, the show didn’t need to portray Putin himself, so avoided trying to juggle his strangely contradictory public persona – which is a shame, as (as Shearsmith showed) exaggerating characteristics can be more revealing than attempting an imitation. The man he is today is a fascinating gift to an actor – a spy, then a nervous amateur in a flawed government, then an accidental leader to a young country, then the most powerful man in the world; initially too boring to go out in public with Yeltsin, then too careful with his public persona for satire, then so broad with his persona his ridiculousness often overpowers the reality. These characteristics, more than the position of the president, indisputably played into this poisoning. We don’t want or need a humanised Putin (although that would be fascinating), but we need a human face on the Putin government and specifically on Putin (a human face on the real man would be nice too, stop with the plastics Vlad!). The underdeveloped ‘character’ we’re lumped with this, I felt, let Putin off the hook. Again, theatre has the power to portray – why not REALLY portray, exaggerate, criticise the leader he’s become?
The show seems thus to prefer decontextualising Putin – ‘The President’ – whilst only marginally contextalising the individual accused of ordering this crime head on – ‘Vladimir Vladimirovich’. Is it truly ever Putin? And what is lost by that? It’s a shame that the character of ‘The President’/Vladimir Vladimirovich thus avoids exaggerating or explaining the man he actually is. Shearsmith’s performance never lost its nervous scariness – I think it’s one of the performances of the year (and imagine the Olivier going to HIM!) – but the role itself is what lets him and the show down. Overall, Putin and the Putin regime remain oddly unsatirised, oddly unchallenged, oddly unscathed. Therefore the Litvinenko verdict loses its sting.
After the play ends – after about twenty false endings, a major structural flaw as it tries to read out a verdict a la Nicholas Kent, give its fictionalised characters what for, reveal the real contemporary history, and wrap up the Litvinenkos’ life stories – its problem become absolutely clear. There are lots of plots, lots of genres, lots of targets this goes for – but it’s therefore inconsistent, messy, and misses several targets. As a farce it mocks two bungling assassins apolitically; as a satire it’s messy with its targets; as an exposé it somewhat works, but the comic tone detracts. Laughing at Putin’s assassins makes the fact that Putin uses assassins on foreign soil almost charming. Simply, it lacks bite as a political play – but worse, there’s not one unified play. We as theatregoers get a good but mixed bag.
Worse than that, because of this, Litvinenko – and especially Marina Litvinenko – come out at a loss. Yes, finally, that verdict is given the huge platform it deserves, but getting there pushes him to the sidelines in his own story. It makes his verdict not justice earned, but the happy end of a sick entry into the Goes Wrong series.
Despite all the madness going on around it, one moment that touched me really deeply was when, after the puppetry was done, Alexander and Marina were left alone dancing on stage to Fleetwood Mac. After having gone through all the mess and madness of the crime and its theatricalisation (some of which serves the mystery and the corruption, some of which doesn’t), the couple were given one final little moment to be exactly that: a couple. It’s what his legacy and her life deserve. It’s a shame the balance between retelling his story and re-interpreting the history wasn’t even: stylistically, the genre twists, moments of humour, moments of horror, metatheatrical Putin, mystery plot, fourth-wall breaking and final verdict verbatim theatre all serve Litvinenko’s death to various degrees – but the love story serves Marina and Sasha’s lives.
P.S. I saw this on its first preview, and simply haven’t had the time to express my thoughts. I dread to think how many changes there’ve been, so if any of this is irrelevant bear that in mind – I’d also love to know what they changed. I hope they’ve settled on fewer endings. My least favourite ending was the slow audience participation. My favourite ending was the rush to the doors as we all missed our last train home.
P.P.S. These are pickets held across Moscow, and town to town across Russia, this Monday, not for Putin’s birthday, but demanding justice for Anna Politkovskaya. Where it should have been Nemtsov’s birthday, this was the scene at the site of his assassination. I’m sure that if Alexander Litvinenko, or even Dawn Sturgess, had larger profiles in Russia, there’d be similar memorials to them. That’s something else I felt this play touched upon, but didn’t delve into, and a reason its mess matters more than just theatrically. Russia isn’t “Russia”; Putin isn’t Russia. Marina Litvinenko, those still fighting for memory and justice today – this is Russia.
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Post by lynette on Oct 11, 2019 15:58:46 GMT
Great review, Nicolas. I think what you are saying isn’t far from what I also felt, that there is a play here about the Litvenenko tragedy but instead of letting that speak, and it wouldn’t have many laughs, it is dressed in a polemic which we frankly don’t need. I also agree the Putin character tricky. I know Charlie Chaplin famously ridiculed Hitler at the time but I am not sure we can do the same to Putin..yet..or ever... I dont think we are clever enough.
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Post by theglenbucklaird on Oct 12, 2019 7:40:51 GMT
Your best post yet Nicholas... and that bar was already really high. You were winning the accolade anyway but I think you have boxed off post of the year now
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Oct 12, 2019 7:59:23 GMT
Agreed. Nicholas you are a wonderfully astute and articulate critic! I enjoy reading your posts so much.
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Post by Nicholas on Nov 17, 2019 11:58:00 GMT
Blushes, you’re too kind. I hope it doesn’t sound cocky to say, but I’ll never write a sentence as good as the NoviChockle Brothers. I’ve peaked. I retire.
Great review, Nicolas. I think what you are saying isn’t far from what I also felt, that there is a play here about the Litvenenko tragedy but instead of letting that speak, and it wouldn’t have many laughs, it is dressed in a polemic which we frankly don’t need. I also agree the Putin character tricky. I know Charlie Chaplin famously ridiculed Hitler at the time but I am not sure we can do the same to Putin..yet..or ever... I dont think we are clever enough. Before I get into pretentious political stuff (I’ve quickly unretired), my first thought it is – whether we can or whether we can’t, I’m not sure Litvinenko’s life story is the platform on which to do it. EITHER A Very Expensive Poison should be about the political systems that assassinated Litvinenko – in which Litvinenko can play a part, as can Skripal and Dawn Sturgess and Nemtsov and 6 Novaya Gazeta journalists and a scary number of others, but not be the hero. OR it should be about the Litvinenkos, in which placing Putin on stage in the first place immediately draws attention away – for example, they used May’s voice but didn’t have the distraction of an imitator on stage, and for Putin perhaps the same thing was better. In fact, for this story, I’d look at how Good Night and Good Luck used archive footage – rather than imitate or parody or satirise and distract, I’d use the real deal. I’d also reiterate, mind, how great Shearsmith’s performance scary and well-observed characterisation was – I’d love to see him on the Olivier stage. My feeling is this managed to give the Litvinenkos a lovely second life and deservedly end their investigation, but by having Uncle Vova on stage the scales were tipped dramatically and the focus muddled; therefore their life story was compromised by Putin a second time over.
Now, the pretentious political stuff. Can we satirise Putin? Probably not. Can one satirise Putin? Yes with a but. I think it was Peter Pomarentsev who said that one reason the Kukli puppet show closed down was this unforgettable moment: when, overnight, the president of Russia changed from a man with so much to parody, to a man with so little on the surface to parody… And if you’re thinking “But what about him shirtless on a horse? That’s funny!”… What was initially impossible to caricature – his precision, his KGB history – is now SO parodied that he does things to make us parody him and stop talking about him as a politician. It works. He’s a compelling character, indisputably – but as a politician he puts on his trousers one leg at a time and that’s the politician we should talk about. However, instead of an inconsistent leader, we talk about his image more than we do about Litvinenko or Dawn Sturgess. It’s embarrassing. To satirise his façade gives us Tonight with Vladimir Putin, which is not just crap comedy, but harmful – it suggests a flawed politician’s biggest flaw is his image (and also, NONE of that show rang true satirising the surface anyway!). Just to name one serious policy flaw, Russia’s going to miss its climate targets; why are we taking Brazil and China and other states seriously for climate betrayals, but we aren’t we taking Putin seriously as a politician in the G20 with global commitments that affect our children? Partly, it’s how superficial our Russian coverage is, which is perfectly encapsulated by our aimless parodies. To satirise him, we need to go to more than the superficial – and that takes in-depth knowledge of the last 50-odd years of Russian history and contemporary Russian society. The fact that ON THIS BOARD people are still using terms like ‘comrade’ about a country of whom only 11% voted Socialist and whose leader say “liberalism has outlived its purpose” shows how uphill that will be.
(in fact I came across this by Jonathan Jones – “So let’s laugh at Vladimir Putin too, and fail to take him seriously, and let the consequences of our cowardice play out. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen?” That was from 2015… Yeah, can’t think what the Russian government’s done newsworthy since then)
You mention Chaplin, but there are a few key issues with that comparison. One is the propaganda that they parody. Amidst the debate of whether the Reifenstahl movies are good art, bad art, and the art can be separated from the culture, one thing gets forgotten – they’re really quite stupid-looking. That over-the-top-ness is VERY easy to parody. We did it. Disney did it. They hold up because they’re true and accurate in their satire. It’s why “Springtime for Mussolini” wouldn’t have worked, but oh boy, this just feels accurate. What musical would best parody Putin? That’s the problem – there’s not a lot to parody in Putin’s Kremlin, not visually, at least – and that’s clearly stage-managed.
Perhaps more importantly, though, The Great Dictator is also about a young Jewish German in ordinary Germany – and the reality of THOSE scenes make the political commentary sharper. The scenes of the Jewish ghetto, and everyday life, are really sensitively drawn – they’re dramatic, not comic. Through this we can both see who the dictator really is, how he’s cast his convincing spell on his country, and how the ordinary people of that country live, believe, and fight. Could we convincingly portray ordinary Russia? I’m not sure we have the knowledge. As this MYOPIC response attests, our view of Russia is a simplistic bitty collage of stereotypes, outdated stereotypes, and politics – some are true, some limit our perspective, and some simply aren’t. Politically, Russia is more than Putin. Apolitically, Russia is more than Putin. Yes, as this play attests, his fingerprints get everywhere, especially politically – but satirising him takes a more holistic approach.
That’s where I was disappointed by A Very Expensive Poison sometimes being about ordinary Russia, but only superficially – it would have been much richer had it really looked at the ordinariness Litvinenko loved and had to escape, not just the politics.
The overall plot that made The Great Dictator timeless is the fact that it was already a timeless story – the Prince and the Pauper. The two scenes that are always remembered are a) the dictator with the globe (god, it’s still so funny) and b) the ordinary man preaching for love. As A Very Expensive Poison somewhat attests, we’re pretty good at the former with regards to contemporary Russia, but not that good with the latter – and until we get the portrayal of ordinary life right, we can’t get the satire of the top.
So, in short, what we need is an insider to write us a Price and the Pauper story from inside the system but all about Putin. That would surely be the greatest film ever made...
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2,706 posts
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 17, 2019 12:42:52 GMT
Thank you Nicholas,
The wider issue, is of course, that, here and now, people are rushing headlong to elect a government whose raison d’etre will be to apply Russia’s will (this tortuous position arising from a belief that hurting yourself further is better than admitting that, in reality, your enemy was the one slicing open the wound). The interference in liberal democracy (I mean, come on, Putin has admitted he is using media manipulation to achieve his goal of destroying it) is, in many ways, helped by this production. It reduces the figures to caricatures, it muddles, it shoots and misses.
The current diminished state of our nation is in need of writers who can pull together our issues into a compelling narrative about what we have and what this national rush to self harm is coming from and leading to. As yet, we are unable to comprehend and deal with a state, as Russia is, that appears to be akin to our new governmental blueprint; that is to turn imagined national grievance into a means of concentrating power in the hands of the establishment, to troll other nations to give an unearned sense of superiority and to stoke public grievance as a way of diminishing and demoralising those who seek national and international consanguinity.
The government’s Russia report is being withheld for one reason only; it is, at the very least, a start at blowing open how our country has been played by a hostile power, all in the service of ensuring that we cut ourselves adrift from those who are in this same battle. The electioneering tittle tattle that is dominating this campaign is missing the overarching issue that maybe only history will reveal.
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