(seen at the afternoon performance on 24th January 2024)
This all begins promisingly enough. We are in post-war Poland under Russian control. Entrepreneurial Kaczmarek (Elliot Levey), with Irena (Alex Young) and virtuoso pianist Wiktor (Luke Thallon) are collecting folk music to present in a touring show.
Singer with a shady past Zula (Anya Chalotra) impresses and joins the group. An encounter with a culture minister (Jordan Metcalfe) persuades opportunist Kaczmarek to turn the show into propaganda for Stalin and to tour friendly nations. The temptation of being too close to the border with the West at a time before the Iron Curtain fell is too much for some... wishing later to return, however, proves almost deadly.
Based on a film by Pawel Pawlikowski, Conor McPherson constructs an uneven and lengthy book for which Elvis Costello writes some new music to scatter among traditional folk songs.
Jon Bausor creates a truly wonderful slightly decrepit old theatre proscenium arch, with morgue-like niche behind, for the action. Ellen Kane has plenty of space for inventive choreography. Orleta’s folk dance consultancy pays off, while Kane herself pulls out all the stops to “Rock Around The Clock.”
Evie Gurney and Paule Constable use costume and light respectively to underline that the Communist era is not all grey – yet the splashes of colour and illumination are not always representative of freedom.
There is strong work too by Jo Cichonska to make the musical direction feel authentic, Sinead Diskin working hard to bring the sound to us from the top corner above the stage into which the orchestra are squeezed.
Director Rupert Goold draws uniformly excellent performances from his large company.
Elliot Levey is a survivor, charmer, rogue yet imbuing Kaczmarek with a common sense and practicality they ignore at their peril. His delight at later escaping legitimately the regime is tangible.
Idealist Irena would have done well to heed him. Alex Young probably needed a drink after an encounter with the authorities early on (and probably had one).
Pianist Wiktor is by far the most complex character. Luke Thallon gives him both strength and cowardice mixed with vanity and amorality. With Anya Chalotra’s Zula delivering likewise, it is a perfect pairing and the chemistry is volcanic.
In smaller roles, Jordan Metcalfe, Anastasia Martin and Katarina Novkovic all double to play two characters, Martin thoughtfully vicious as poet, Metcalfe officious as minister.
The ensemble are a credible Polish dance troupe and downtrodden crowd deployed well to lend the appropriate atmosphere as required.
Their world is a fascinating piece of history. This play, however, covers too many aspects without enough depth to truly shock, move or educate by the end – failing ultimately to fulfil promise suggested in the opening scenes.
There is enough to arouse an interest, but it proves uneven and ultimately unsatisfying as some characters vanish without explanation after we have invested in their stories.
With a melodramatic conclusion at odds with what has gone before, this is a play of two unbalanced halves.
3 stars.
Photo credit: Marc Brenner. Used by kind permission of the Almeida Theatre.