This, to paraphrase the football commentator's well-known 'boo-boo', is likely to be a 'review of two halves'; not only because I want to deal with the play as a theatrical event first and then discuss its political philosophy second, but also because, having been away for three days, the little 'Memsahib' might want me for karate practice or shopping in Sainsburys both of which inspire equal feelings of dread. However, for those unlikely or unwilling to plod through my florid prose for much more than a nano-second, here is a synopsis of my review: beg, borrow, steal, maim or murder, if you have to, in order to get a ticket for this example of theatrical excellence!
The play covers the history of the Czech struggle for liberty under Soviet oppression from the 1960s to the 1990s, as seen from Cambridge and Prague. Stoppard's hero is Jan, a Czech-Jew whose family fled the Nazi invasion to England, where Jan spent his childhood, but returned after the war to their homeland. Jan (Rufus Sewell), having gained a doctorate at Prague is now in Cambridge studying philosophy under the tutelage of Max (Brian Cox), a 'died-in-the-red-wool' Marxist. It is the 'Prague Spring' of 1968 and Jan is giving up his studies to return home. Max is furious, not only because Jan is both a friend and his favourite student, but because he suspects that Jan is going back to aid the liberal Dubcek government. In fact, he's returned, seriously, to make sure his widowed mother is safe and, semi-flippantly, to bring rock and roll to Czechoslovakia! Jan is a young man of his 1960s times and the only revolution he's really interested in is the one that liberates people from what he sees as social conformity. However, as we know, the 'Prague Spring' was rapidly turned to Soviet winter by several tank divisions and a plague of KGB. Jan's friend in Prague is Ferdinand*, as absolute for social democracy as Max is for red-in-tooth-and-claw Marxism. Jan, however, remains obdurately uninvolved. He points out to Ferdinand that despite the loss of Dubcek and the invasion by Russian troops, in fact, when measured against the great atrocities of the 20th c., the Sovietised regime is something of a soft hand in a velvet glove and he refuses to sign petitions or become involved - so long as they allow his beloved rock 'n' roll to be played and performed. Of course, eventually that is precisely what, after a while, is also stamped on and Jan's protest leads to a spell in jail followed by non-skilled labour in a bakery.
Meanwhile, back in Cambridge, we meet Max's wife Eleanor (Sinead Cusack), a classics professor who is suffering from breast cancer, and their 16-year-old daughter, Esme. The relationship between the intellectually bullying Max and the equally sharp-tongued Eleanor is drawn superbly consisting, as it does in many real-life marriages, of a mixture of friendship, love, tensions and exasperation. During the course of the play, Eleanor dies, and we then jump in time so that we see her daughter, Esme (played by Sinead Cusack) as an adult with a daughter of her own. The play ends in the 1990s with the widower Max, reconciled to the failures of Marxism, finding companionship and love with an old flame; and Jan returning to Cambridge from a 'liberated' Czech Republic to find love with Esme.
Jan, of course, is an autobiographical creation. Stoppard, himself, is a Czech-Jew whose family fled the Nazis, and he was a discreet supporter of those Czech intellectuals who spoke out against the iniquity of the Soviet occupation. However, the similarities go deeper. Here, I am forced to speculate because obviously I do not know Stoppard personally, but I have seen or heard him on those rare occasions when he allows an interview, and it seems to me that Sewell has captured the essence of Stoppard in his portrayal of the 'fictional' Jan. The diffidence, the shy smile, the hesitancy in speech which, in Stoppard, stems not from an inability to make up his mind but from a proper regard for the proper use of language and a humility in the face of the only certainty in this world - uncertainty! Sewell's performance is simply terrific.
Max (and to a certain degree, Ferdinand, the political dissident) are the opposite of Jan. Max is committed to his Marxism despite the blatant and brutal facts of its outcome. As he puts it, "I speak as one who's kicked in the teeth by nine-tenths of anything you can tell me about Soviet Russia", but when Jan asks him why, then, has he remained in the Party, he replies, "Because of the tenth". Max is an almost Lear-like figure of furious temper and passionate commitment which stems from a powerful ego but Stoppard's incredible achievement is, like Shakespeare's, to bring an audience round to pity for this politically blind old man who, at the end, is forced to see clearly. Here, with deliberate irony but genuine anguish he sums up his lost dreams, "There was a place once, a huge country where square-jawed workers swung sledgehammers, and smiling buxom girls with kerchiefs on their heads lifted sheaves of wheat, and there was a lot of singing, and volumes of poetry in editions of a hundred thousand sold out in a day ... What happened to it?" In this character we can see what makes Stoppard such a great writer. Take almost any modern Left-wing playwright creating a super-rich capitalist monster and you will almost certainly see a Brechtian, two-dimensional caricature of, say, Robert Maxwell with the all-too obvious expectation on the part of its creator that we in the audience should hiss and boo his every appearance like children at a pantomime. No such childishness from Stoppard who gives his Marxist 'monster' time and eloquence to express his philosophy and to fill out his all too human strengths and frailties. I have never seen Brian Cox on stage before and I was stunned by the power, the energy and the technical acting expertise of his performance.
Sinead Cusack is sublime in the two roles of mother and then, adult daughter. As Eleanor, her fear and courage in the face of a disease that is killing her is almost too painful to watch. Here, driven to a fury by Max's philosophical pedantry concerning the non-existence of mind and the reality of body, she bursts out, "They've cut, cauterised and zapped away my breasts, my ovaries, my womb, half my bowel, and a nutmeg out of my brain, and I am undiminished, I'm exactly who I've always been. I am not my body. My body is nothing without me, that's the truth of it." She and Cox together are electric!
Trevor Nunn, of course, 'realises' Stoppard's plays better than anyone. In this production a revolve is used, divided into three sections so that rapid changes from scene to scene can be effected quickly. During these brief, blacked-out intermissions, extracts from various rock bands are played and the details projected onto a screen. This is one of my few caveats concerning the production because the sheer, brain-scrambling volume of what to me is a cacophonous din forced me to put my fingers in my ears, but you old, and not-so-old, rockers will probably love it! There was also another irritation in the form of a lady in black who stood to one side of the proscenium arch in a spotlight and waved her arms about like a demented tic-tac man! Apparently this was sign-language for the deaf. I was about to stand up and demand to know exactly how many deaf people were present to justify this intrusion into my theatrical enjoyment when it occurred to me that they wouldn't be able to hear me! I have since been informed that this is now a regular and frequent occurrence at theatres which confirms my suspicion that the tyranny of the disabled is spreading beyond their insufferable claims to the best parking spaces in every supermarket. Back to the production! The Royal Court is to be congratulated for selling a 'programme' that not only lists the details of the company but also includes the text of the play. Equally, they are to be given a raspberry for failing to indicate which of the several supporting actors, all of whom were excellent, played which roles.
In my next post, tomorrow, I hope, I will try and explore the densities of Stoppard's philosophical musings as expressed in this play. In the meantime, I urge all of you to try your hardest to see this production, particularly with this cast. For me, it was the most exciting, enthralling and moving theatrical event since "The Coast of Utopia" - and you know who wrote that one, too!
* I am unable to name the excellent actor concerned because the programme does not inform us. See the penultimate paragraph above.
David,
No quibbles with your effusive praise for this production. A wonderful theatre experience and Sewell is superb as Jan.
But do look at the page after the flyleaf in your programme. It gives a full cast and crew list, including the excellent Peter Sullivan as Ferdinand!
Regards,
Louise
Posted by: Louise | Sunday, 02 July 2006 at 12:55
Thanks, Louise, as you will see from "Part II" above, I have admitted my error and apologised. I'm glad you enjoyed the play as much as me.
Posted by: David Duff | Sunday, 02 July 2006 at 14:49