Burnt By The Sun at the National Theatre

Burnt By The Sun at the National Theatre

17 March, 2009
by: Joe Harrod

I didn't think anything could possibly make me more miserable than the tuna melt served to me by the National Theatre's so-called café before the performance. How wrong I was.

Peter Flannery's stage adaptation of Nikita Mikhalov's Oscar-winning 1994 film is a gloomy masterpiece. The entire first act is outwardly cheerful, full of nostalgia, re-unions and familial love. And yet, a sense of dread seeps through as surely as breezes permeate the clapped out wooden dacha where the action takes place. As for the denouement, well, it's both frightening and dreadfully sad.

Like many of the characters, I was left in need of a stiff drink. But in a good way. You know, theatre should sometimes hollow you out, should really press your nose against the bleak history and prospects of our race, and this fine piece is both shattering, and ultimately enriching. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, sort of thing.

Cleverly staged in a cross-sectioned summer-house that squeaks back and forth on rollers between scenes, the play has a nice pace and a clutch of excellent performances. The action centres around a four-star Soviet General, Kotov, on holiday with his wife and child with her elderly family in 1936. (Historical illiterates, this was the dawn of Stalin's Terror when the paranoia of Stalin turned inwards and thousands of party faithful were purged by the NKVD, fore-runner of the KGB.) Kotov's in-laws are art and music lovers, constantly harking back to pre-revolutionary times, and he tolerates this in a fairly ill-tempered way, until the return of her ex-lover, an all-singing, dancing traitor puts his back up, and then threatens his very existence.

Without giving too much away, the gruff hard-drinking General (superbly played by Ciaran Hinds) emerges eventually as a sympathetic figure – hard, but honest and indulgent to a fault of the family he adores. Something like Michael Henchard in Thomas Hardy's Far From The Madding Crowd. The intruding Mitia (Rory Kinnear) is adored by the family he left behind for 12 years, but immediately fills the smug twerp Donald Farfrae position in the audience's regard. It's impossible to like a twirling play-actor such as this specimen, especially when he openly tries to disrupt the family of his ex-lover. However it eventually emerges that this apparent lightweight holds all the cards and will take a dreadful revenge upon Kotov.

Both male leads give stellar performances and Michelle Dockery wins the day in a tightrope role – the dutiful wife who is at first spellbound by her returning lover, then realises that she really adores the steadfast qualities of Kotov. Initially, she gurns a bit but who wouldn't? Her emotions are absolutely pivotal and thoroughly convincing. The choir of aging relatives, a drunk nephew and a neurotic servant are well balanced between entertainment value and shocked reaction. Perhaps if the play has a fault it's that these supporting characters fall very easily into Russian types – aesthete, drunk, superstitious peasant, drunk, etc. However the three principle characters are engaging and nuanced, and the daughter Nadia (Skye Burnett) is a delight.

A biting piece of Soviet terror, then, this play engages you from the word go, even serving up a healthy number of laughs, before sticking a hand into your guts and giving them a good twist. Definitely see it if you can, but for God's sake, give the sandwiches a wide berth.

Photo credit: Catherine Ashmore

See what's on at the National Theatre
Check out all London Thrillers
Check out all London Theatre
Check out Things To Do in London

Joe Harrod