Theatre review: Summerfolk

Maxim Gorky's Summerfolk was written in 1904, the year Anton Chekhov died; Nina Raine and Moses Raine's new version for the National moves the action to one year later, possibly so that the characters can make reference to his death, and the obvious comparisons to Gorky's playwrighting contemporary aren't left to be the elephant in the room. Because this all feels very familiar: A large group of well-off Russians (in this case explicitly said to be self-made, nouveau-riche) are on their annual extended summer holiday at a dacha. Some are related: The house belongs to Varvara (Sophie Rundle) and her laywer husband Sergei Bassov (Paul Ready,) while her brother Vlass (Alex Lawther) is nominally Sergei's clerk, but in practice seems to be there mainly to moon over an older woman, the doctor Maria Lvovna (Justine Mitchell.)

There's also a wider circle of friends, relatives and hangers-on whose exact relationship to anyone else isn't always clear, in fact an even bigger ensemble than Chekhov usually manages: The stage is so full of rich people complaining on holiday, it's like The White Lotus with less rimming.

In fact Robert Hastie's production is so stacked with familiar faces I found myself forgetting, and being repeatedly surprised to see the likes of Doon Mackichan return to the stage: Daniel Lapaine is Shalimov, a famous writer invited largely because Varvara remembered being attracted to his flowing locks of hair; having gone bald since she last saw him, he finds himself ignored with no real purpose in the group. Peter Forbes' Semyon is a lonely millionaire with no children, who thinks he might move in with the nephew who's his sole heir; but the corrupt building magnate Pyotr (Arthur Hughes,) the least likeable character even in this grim collection, is only interested in his uncle's money, not his company.

Pyotr's personality may be a major reason why his wife Yulia (Adelle Leonce) is pretty openly having an affair with Nikolai (Brandon Grace,) while another unhappy couple comes in the form of Sid Sagar's doctor, Kirill - because if everything has to be that little bit bigger than Chekhov, why settle for his usual one doctor when you can have two? - and his wife Olga, who Gwyneth Keyworth makes one of the comic highlights with her utter dislike for the numerous kids she's given birth to. Pip Carter is Pavel, another admirer of Varvara's who she's more or less completely unaware of, while Maria's teenage daughter Sonya (Tamika Bennett) is having a flirtation with the student Maxim (Thomas Barrett.)

Mackichan plays Bassov's sister Kaleria, a poet at the same time haughty and rather fragile; Sergei himself is equally contradictory, his sense of insecurity around his young wife sometimes coming out in bursts of aggression towards her. Largely the evening consists of the various plot strands and tensions between the guests tightening and cracking over their summer stay, with some interesting little twists along the way - I liked the way the assumption that there's something Oedipal about the age-gap relationship between Maria and Vlass becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and ultimately the thing that breaks them up even though it was never really true when they first got together.

I had to really go on the hunt for the NT's free yellow cast sheets for this show but they were worth finding, as it does lay out what the relationship between everyone is, and Ben and I spent much of the interval piecing together who was who and what they were doing in this group of people who, under surface niceties, are at best all fed up with each other. Like The Cherry Orchard, which this could almost be a sequel to, there's the feel that this is the end of an era and the common people - who are often grumbling on the sidelines - are going to rise up, but in Gorky's version that may not even be necessary, as these upper middle classes are more likely to turn on themselves.

This is the overall thrust of where the story is going, and Ben and I agreed afterwards that for all the similarities to Chekhov this looseness of structure was one big difference: It never feels as if individual plotlines are as sharp as they could be, or resolve quite as satisfactorily. Having said that there's a wittiness to the Raines' writing that keeps the evening entertaining; tonight an already-long show started late because of a fire alarm that meant the whole National had to be evacuated, and despite this I still never felt the show dragging on as late into the night as it actually was. Although how anyone was supposed to pay any attention to the dialogue at the top of third act, when Brandon Grace was wandering the stage wearing only wet, see-through long johns, is anyone's guess. As is why this obvious selling point hasn't been used in any of the released production photos, oh well I guess I'll just have to go back to one of his previous appearances at the National instead.

There, that's better.

Also providing strong visuals is Peter McKintosh's design of half-built walls flying in and out of the set: One of the subplots, this time bringing to mind The Seagull, is the guests entertaining themselves by staging a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and this could be part of the inspiration behind Hastie's production having the dreamlike feel of being lost somewhere in the middle of the woods. The play itself may feel at times likes it's lacking in narrative drive, but the adaptation is cleverly written and the luxury casting brings its own energy.

Summerfolk by Maxim Gorky in a version by Nina Raine and Moses Raine is booking until the 29th of April at the National Theatre's Olivier.

Running time: 2 hours 50 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Johan Persson.