Tag Archives: Dave Malloy

NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812

★★★★★

Donmar Warehouse

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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.

 

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 | ★★★★ | July 2024
THE HUMAN BODY | ★★★ | February 2024
LOVE AND OTHER ACTS OF VIOLENCE | ★★★★ | October 2021

NATASHA

NATASHA

NATASHA

 

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Preludes

Preludes in Concert

★★★★★

Online via Southwark Playhouse

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Preludes

Preludes in Concert

Online via Southwark Playhouse

Reviewed – 7th May 2021

★★★★★

 

“it assaults our senses and soothes them in equal measure”

 

Aged just nineteen, Sergei Rachmaninoff wrote his Prelude in C-sharp minor to world-wide acclaim, was commissioned to write his first symphony and he was engaged to the love of his life. He seemed to have it all, yet within months a depressive paranoia and anxiety had stopped him in his tracks; a darkness that no doubt came from within but was also prompted in part by Tchaikovsky’s death, and by the effortful completion of his own Symphony No. 1 which was subsequently panned by the critics. The conductor, an alcoholic, was drunk at the premiere. But Rachmaninoff’s writer’s block had already set in. He was already displeased with his composition, feeling he had peaked too early with his Prelude, and the Orthodox church was thwarting his plans for marriage.

Composing had become impossible. How do you escape the darkness and come back into the light? All this, and more, is explored in Dave Malloy’s “Preludes” which examines, in extraordinary and beautifully surreal ways, the true story of this particular episode of his life. A musical fantasia set in the hypnotised mind of Sergei Rachmaninoff.

This is not just another musical about a tortured artist. Malloy, who wrote the book, music, lyrics and the orchestrations has crafted an enigma. It defies categories, but also mixes them. It feels experimental but is perfectly formed, it lulls you into its trance-like dreamscape but keeps your attention razor sharp; it mixes the past, present and future. We are in a world where Mahler, Reggae, Beethoven and Doo-Wop can share the same phrase, where Acid Trance weaves its rhythms into the phrases of a Piano Concerto.

The starting point is the composer’s session with his therapist Nikolai Dahl (Rebecca Caine). “How was your day?” she asks – not the question to ask a damaged, depressed artistic genius three years into a stifling breakdown. Keith Ramsay, as Rachmaninoff (or rather ‘Rach’), launches into a monologue which sets the pace for a tour de force performance. Ramsay is the picture of unsettled alienation; wide-eyed and wild-eyed, uncertain of his worth. Intense, chilling and hypnotising. His words bleed into Malloy’s haunting melodies which in turn flow into Rachmaninoff’s timeless compositions.

We are never too sure if the surrounding characters are in the composer’s mind or not, but under Alex Sutton’s riveting direction they are brought to vivid life. They circle him, cajole him and bravely try to help him. Georgia Louise, as Natalya, is pivotal to restoring the composer’s state of mind with her patience, stretched to the limit at times. There are moments when their voices collide in their duets when you can forget everything. Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky and Tsar Nicholas II brilliantly spill out of Rach’s mind into the camera shot, thanks to the vigour, versatility and virtuosity of Steven Serlin. Norton James, as Russian opera singer Chaliapin, plays with our minds with a Mephistophelean portrayal that verges on psychedelic madness. Crucial to the piece is Tom Noyes at the piano, letting the true genius of Rachmaninoff reveal itself through the musical accompaniment.

The production transfers from stage to camera in an astounding blaze of glory. Aided by Andrew Exeter’s lighting and Andrew Johnson’s eclectic sound it assaults our senses and soothes them in equal measure. Contradictions have never been more harmonious. The mix of classical music, musical theatre, trance beats, neon lights; introspection and overt humour, reality and fantasy, past and present, just would not work on paper. But on stage and on camera it is an intoxicating brew. Dark and beautiful. And hypnotic.

 

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Scott Rylander

 


Preludes in Concert

Online via Southwark Playhouse until 8th May

 

Reviewed this year by Jonathan:
Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Hung Parliament | ★★★★ | Online | February 2021
The Picture of Dorian Gray | ★★★★ | Online | March 2021
Bklyn The Musical | ★★★★★ | Online | March 2021
Remembering the Oscars | ★★★ | Online | March 2021
Disenchanted | ★★★ | Online | April 2021

 

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