NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812

Donmar Warehouse

★★★★★

“The performances are uniformly superb, the skin of each character ripped open by the flaming crossbow of passion”

A major comet is visible from earth on average every five to ten years, while a great comet is visible every twenty to thirty years. Although the timescale may be contracted a little, a truly great show appears every once in a while, that forces people to look up and take note. “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812” is one of the brightest examples of this phenomenon. Directed by Tim Sheader, Dave Malloy’s searing sung-through musical will scorch itself into our memories for a long time to come.

Malloy has taken a seventy-page segment from Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ and moulded it into a passionate, original musical that interweaves the fates of the two protagonists: the story of Natasha’s downfall and Pierre’s awakening. A tale of despair and of hope. Surrounded by a colourful array of characters, it could be a convoluted affair, but Malloy’s libretto clarifies the narrative with mischievous simplicity and imaginative ingenuity. We are propelled into the story by way of the ‘Prologue’; playfully executed like a cross between a memory game and an introductory meeting for a covert club. A few melodious words from each, between the repeated refrain that one of its members is absent. ‘Andrey isn’t here’. Andrey is off fighting in the Napoleonic Wars. His fiancé is here though. The beautiful Countess Natasha, tossed into the centre of the space – a smouldering comet on her journey from gleeful, betrothed ingenue to tragic heroine.

Chumisa Dornford-May grabs the roller-coaster ride of Natasha’s role with complete abandon and commitment. Her songs of innocence capsized by harsh experience. All around her is seduction. The hunters and the hunted; cuckolds and adulterers. In Moscow, waiting for the return of her fiancé, Natasha falls in love with the casually dismissive yet alluringly sexy Anatole (Jamie Muscato in gorgeous, rock-star, swaggering form). Anatole’s sister, Hélène, is delighted by the illicit affair. After all, it is de rigueur. She herself has made a cuckold of her husband – the deeply unhappy Pierre. Cat Simmons’ manipulative Hélène is sultry and sexy yet encased in ice, while Declan Bennett’s Pierre is dishevelled in appearance and self-esteem, yet the heat from his growing awareness can warm the hardest heart.

The performances are uniformly superb, the skin of each character ripped open by the flaming crossbow of passion. We want to know what is going to happen but at the same time want to stay in each moment for as long as possible. Malloy’s score (which he also orchestrated for the ten-piece band) is impossibly eclectic and wonderfully fearless. A mix of folk, anarcho-punk, techno, baroque, chamber and New Wave. One moment heartbreaking ballads, the next storms of dramatic scales and diminished sevenths. The musical numbers are bolstered by the ensemble – one minute a celestial choir, the next a band of whirling dervishes at a rave. The musicians have no break, and just when you think you’ve reached a musical highlight, another appears on the horizon. And the singing is extraordinary – both in virtuosity and emotion. Bennett’s solo number ‘Dust and Ashes’ sweeps us away one moment; then Dornford-May lures us back in with the heartfelt ‘No One Else’. Simmons’ smoky vocals bewitch during ‘Charming’. Maimuna Memon, as Natasha’s cousin Sonya who vainly tries to save her, beguiles with a hypnotic performance and mesmerising voice – her plaintive ‘Sonya Alone’ up there with the peaks of the set list.

Evie Gurney’s costumes are as lawless and rebellious as the score. Like a job lot stolen from the wardrobe of a New Romantic music video they scream sex, drugs and rock n roll. Period and modern, the design mirrors the entire production which defies time and place. We know we are in nineteenth century Moscow, but we could equally be in New York’s Studio 54 nightclub in the nineteen-seventies.

“Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812” is a trailblazing show. Against Leslie Travers’ harsh, minimalist backdrop it dazzles at every level. It is spectacular and heartrending, right up to its closing number. Sung quietly to the accompaniment of a simple piano motif, it rises like the great comet of 1812, into an imagined starry sky. It brings with it the promise of a new life. It’s not the end of the world after all. The exhilaration ripples through everybody in the room. A soaring success.