Theatre
Brothers Karamazov
Tron Theatre, Glasgow
Neil Cooper
***
BROTHERLY love is in abundance in writer Richard Crane and director Faynia Willliams’ staging of Dostoyevsky’s epic 900-page novel, a philosophical treatise on church, state and family. The spiritual, psychological, and emotional consequences of murder on such a dysfunctional clan are also apparent. First seen at the Edinburgh Festival in 1981, Crane and Williams’ revived collaboration puts just four actors on stage to tell all this in a mere two hours of a transcendent family reunion.
With all four siblings entering through the auditorium singing, this is about as harmonious as things get, as mercurial Dmitry, rationalist Ivan, youngest and most wide-eyed of the brood Alyosha and illegitimate runt of the litter Smerdyakov gather. What follows is a soap opera that also fires a moral and ethical debate en route to some kind of enlightenment.
Set inside a construction that is part bearpit, part lecture theatre, on one level Williams’ production is one great big confessional. On another, the set’s suggestion of a monastic circus ring lends the troupe a certain levity as they go through a series of set-piece routines. This involves Sean Biggerstaff, Mark Brailsford, Tom England and Thierry Mabonga playing all other characters, as well as throwing the odd dance move.
If this pick and mix of styles mirrors the ambition of Dostoyevsky’s original, it doesn’t always make for clarity. It never quite finds enough momentum to transform the immensity of its source material into something that fully does it justice. In the end, the brothers go out as they came in, as damaged goods, finding a rare show of unity as they sing the praises of their immortal souls.
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