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๐ŸŽญ A TOP SHOW IN DECEMBER 2024 ๐ŸŽญ

NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812

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Donmar Warehouse

NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812

Donmar Warehouse

โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…

โ€œThe performances are uniformly superb, the skin of each character ripped open by the flaming crossbow of passionโ€

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. โ€œNatasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812โ€ is one of the brightest examples of this phenomenon. Directed by Tim Sheader, Dave Malloyโ€™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 Tolstoyโ€™s โ€˜War and Peaceโ€™ and moulded it into a passionate, original musical that interweaves the fates of the two protagonists: the story of Natashaโ€™s downfall and Pierreโ€™s awakening. A tale of despair and of hope. Surrounded by a colourful array of characters, it could be a convoluted affair, but Malloyโ€™s libretto clarifies the narrative with mischievous simplicity and imaginative ingenuity. We are propelled into the story by way of the โ€˜Prologueโ€™; 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. โ€˜Andrey isnโ€™t hereโ€™. Andrey is off fighting in the Napoleonic Wars. His fiancรฉ is here though. The beautiful Countess Natasha, tossed into the centre of the space โ€“ a smouldering comet on her journey from gleeful, betrothed ingenue to tragic heroine.

Chumisa Dornford-May grabs the roller-coaster ride of Natashaโ€™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 fiancรฉ, Natasha falls in love with the casually dismissive yet alluringly sexy Anatole (Jamie Muscato in gorgeous, rock-star, swaggering form). Anatoleโ€™s sister, Hรฉlรจne, is delighted by the illicit affair. After all, it is de rigueur. She herself has made a cuckold of her husband โ€“ the deeply unhappy Pierre. Cat Simmonsโ€™ manipulative Hรฉlรจne is sultry and sexy yet encased in ice, while Declan Bennettโ€™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. Malloyโ€™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 โ€“ 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 youโ€™ve reached a musical highlight, another appears on the horizon. And the singing is extraordinary โ€“ both in virtuosity and emotion. Bennettโ€™s solo number โ€˜Dust and Ashesโ€™ sweeps us away one moment; then Dornford-May lures us back in with the heartfelt โ€˜No One Elseโ€™. Simmonsโ€™ smoky vocals bewitch during โ€˜Charmingโ€™. Maimuna Memon, as Natashaโ€™s cousin Sonya who vainly tries to save her, beguiles with a hypnotic performance and mesmerising voice โ€“ her plaintive โ€˜Sonya Aloneโ€™ up there with the peaks of the set list.

Evie Gurneyโ€™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 Yorkโ€™s Studio 54 nightclub in the nineteen-seventies.

โ€œNatasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812โ€ is a trailblazing show. Against Leslie Traversโ€™ 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. Itโ€™s not the end of the world after all. The exhilaration ripples through everybody in the room. A soaring success.

 

NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812

Donmar Warehouse

Reviewed on 17th December 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Johan Persson

 

 


 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

SKELETON CREW | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | July 2024
THE HUMAN BODY | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | February 2024
LOVE AND OTHER ACTS OF VIOLENCE | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | October 2021

NATASHA

NATASHA

NATASHA

 

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