Theatre
Fathers and Sons (Lyttleton)
The power of absence
Christopher Edwards
This new production is an adaptation by Brian Friel of Turgenev's great novel. It would be as well, almost, to forget about the novel. Knowledge of the book might be a hindrance if it meant you were constantly looking over the adapter's shoulder to compare this character or that episode with the original. The structure and tone of the novel are freely manipulated — to the fury perhaps of Turgenev lovers — but it is worth it: the result is an original and brilliant piece of drama.
The key figure, of course, remains the formidable student Bazarov — a new Russian political type that Turgenev was the first to identify in the 1860s. Bazarov's doctrine of nihilism has been well de- scribed as the bare mind of science in its first application to politics. Early in the play we see how it clashes with the old, decent Russian liberalism as embodied, variously, by the two middle-aged brothers Nikolai and Pavel. Bazarov (Robert Gle- nister) and his devoted friend Arkady (Ralph Fiennes) argue like a pair of student Jacobins. Out of the window go art, sentiment and any appeal to estab- liShed authority. Arkady (who is the son of Nikolai) is callow, impressionable and more the adolescent nihilist struggling against his own essential decency. Bazar- ov, on the other hand, is self-possessed, ruthless, and apparently, without feeling. Arkady projects a heartfelt eloquence, Bazarov a powerful and destructive will. Both actors are superb. But they owe much of their strengths to Brian Friel and his triumphant creation of a form of dialogue that is both subtle and virile. The conflict- 'Scattered showers with fall on Kentucky home.' ing arguments he gives his two students (and for that matter the old uncle Pavel) are intellectually varied, serious and re- spectable (how often can one say that about British plays?) but always remain within the province of individual character- isation. Turgenev was not, by tempera- ment, politically minded. I suspect Brian Friel is, and that the lot of 19th-century peasantry (read Irish for Russian) might fan radical concerns in his heart. If so, then his achievement in this work is touched with the true Turgenev spirit, for he observes and creates all his characters with scrupulous and impartial attention. It is very impressive.
Impressive too is the way Friel com- presses the story to generate interest. He gives Bazarov a fine rationalist's speech about the absurdity of romantic love, how the troubadours were mad, that love is only physical etc. Bazarov then meets the gracious, aristocratic Anna Odintsov (Meg Davies) and to his horror discovers roman- tic love for himself. One of the most daring dramatic touches made by Friel concerns the death of Bazarov from typhoid. This is possibly the most powerful moment in the novel. Friel lets it take place offstage. But as with Friel's handling of the famous duel between Bazarov and Pavel the fact that we do not know for sure what has hap- pened makes us hang on every word as the event is reported to us. With the duel there is a moment when we believe he may have been shot. With Bazarov's death his father (Robin Bailey) speaks of him in the pre- sent tense, and it takes the arrival of his grieving mother before the news is con- firmed. What follows on stage is both terribly moving and shrewdly calculated. His mother sings a Te Deum in which she is joined by the father. Apart from the intrinsic power of the music, what haunts us in this scene is precisely the absence of Bazarov; we miss the actor's powerful intensity on stage and this lends far more force to the mourning than if he had actually been there. This is the most striking of several instances where Friel demonstrates his craftsman's astuteness.
The play has many other attractions. Richard Pasco's belle-lettrist dandy Pavel is a delightfully touching and expressive creation; he nurses a slight and illicit romantic sub-plot by himself and, with delicious delicacy, thanks Bazarov in their final parting for not giving him away. Of the many other characters, one has to mention Joyce Grant's mad Princess Olga — the only true nihilist on stage and the source of much batty, damning humour. The only reservation I have is directed at the miserably drab wooden set which (apart from its great ugliness) fails entirely to differentiate between the various social milieus. If this production had been given a properly imaginative set in the manner, say, of the National's recent staging of Wild Honey, it might have been as lovely to look at as it is captivating to watch.
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