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The Abbey Theatre
11 Jan 2017
It isn’t often that two such seminal Irish greats converge on a production as vital as the Abbey’s Christmas show. Despite the concaves of 2016, the year was set to end with eminent playwright Marina Carr and acclaimed kooky director Wayne Jordan, who studied drama in TCD, teaming up to carve their own statue of “Anna Karenina” from Tolstoy’s 800+ page knob of clay – with the task of smoothing a concoction of Carr’s Irish wit, Jordan’s aesthetic vision and the illustriously seedy storyline of affairs and heartache in 19th century Russia. The almost surrealist vibe of the play’s posters which have circulated the city have added to the intrigue – a signifying red, warning the audience that this will indeed be a bumpy ride. The result? A rich and ambitious production, which entertained the audience for the three hours, despite not quite achieving the heights that might have been expected.
Jordan seems to be getting his kicks these days from adaptations; putting his own spin on familiar classics, so the audience can focus on the experience of his theatre without having to follow the storyline too much. This doesn’t really work with a novel like “Anna Karenina” – the plot line is dazzling, complex, and requires the full attention of the audience. The show examines the hierarchies of families, the power of a family name, and internal familial relationships, leaving great scope for the actors to gel together. Loyal to the novel, the play opens with charming child actors, lining up like the Von Trapps to recite one of Tolstoy’s most famous lines: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The play has numerous branches of story-lines, blooming side by side from the same root: Anna Karenina, our opulent heroine. Liza Dwan catapulted herself into the role, displaying the gradations of Anna’s internal conflict with an elegant ease – although perhaps she could note there is only so much shouting the audience can adhere to before it stops being effective.
The difficulties of Anna and Vronksy’s (played by Rory Fleck Byrne) affair, one of the great literary passions of any canon, are explicitly documented on stage. Numerous instances of questionable consent definitely unsettled the audience, and were a reminder of the defeated status of woman at this time: 1870s Tsarist Russia. The pair allowed themselves to be vulnerable, viscerally and physically bearing themselves to each other and to the audience in their underwear, allowing us into this slice of contested lust. The scene of Anna’s childbirth, was a primitive reminder of female pain; Dwan engaged every inch of her being, telling the story of her being slut-shamed in third person with the blood from the childbirth, the pain of approaching death visibly controlling her. Jordan chose for this to be the sole scene with extra-diegetic music, which almost stole the moment of naturalistic anguish from me – while this technique works in film, it was a slight bumpy reminder of the fictional nature of the production and took away from the sincerity of Dwan’s performance.
The real triumph of this production is its ability to truly transport the audience to a different world for the full three hours. The aesthetic of the production is like a Wes Anderson film – pastel with each character defined by their colours of their costumes. The Abbey’s stage seemed bigger – or perhaps the chorus were just not quite filling it enough – due to the set primarily consisting of the train track. The train track worked excellently, with smooth transitions almost like watching a film. It almost felt like the audience was on a roundabout due to how quickly the stage and scene changes, from the lavish interiors of Russian aristocrats to the poor peasant countryside. To add to the cinematic vibe, a lone piano gave the play an almost continuous soundtrack – sometimes screechy, sometimes jazzy, always with the player’s back to the audience. The use of props was brief but clever.
The actors remained in their own accents, sometimes even exaggerating the Irish lexical quirks. Anna was even described as “up herself” – Carr may have been loyal to Tolstoy, but the script was intended for the Abbey audience. Anna’s husband, played by Declan Conlon was the feeble villain, failing to suck any sympathy from the audience despite his situation, even when Anna quips “I’d rather be his [Vronsky] whore than your wife” to him. Once again, Ruth McGill shone on stage, comically playing Dolly in what was the stellar performance of the show. Her and her husband, played by Killian Burke, bounced off each other innocently in their ignorance, the comedy contrasting nicely to the drama of Karenins. The loftier scenes, where the cast would swell with all its vibrant characters, were a highlight, as the spectacle outshone any one performance. Julie Maguire, playing Kitty, was charming in her Munster ways, and excellently presented the development of her character from acquitted child clad in pink to fed-up mother. The Granny was fantastic – combining the drollest parts of a typical Irish granny mixed with our idea of Russian Grannies from that Eurovision entry a few years ago.
The highest praise must be awarded to Sarah Bacon for her costume design. Her choice of costume had the destabilising effect of both making the play more contemporary while also firmly placing it in sundry different eras – a funny amalgamation of 1870s Russia, 1960s California and a 1970s underground Drag Queen bar for the scenes set in St Petersburg. The faux fur was excessively brilliant – even serving as duvets on the beds. Anna’s funky patterns and jumpsuits singled her out on the stage; the classiness of black spoke of her terrors and gave her an edge compared to the pastels of other characters, notably Kitty. Mixed with Sinéad Wallace’s lighting, these costumes supplied the play with the glamour of Old Hollywood.
Overall, the aesthetics of the play were more effective than the performances. The show achieved what it set out to do: be a spectacle. The whole production had a camp quality and a clarity that made it feel like a musical, which took away from the high drama of the script but added a different texture to the production. The play opened onto a backdrop with graffiti stating “Vengeance is mine, I will repay”, suggesting a contemporary adaptation (or that Harry Potter’s Chamber of Secrets had once again been opened), and ended with circularity: Anna’s vitriolic end was shown superbly on set, a contrast to the classical ‘action happening backstage’ Jordan so often chooses to do. The three and a half hours were definitely too long, and while Carr’s loyalty to Tolstoy may be admired, perhaps condensing some of the less pivotal scenes would have made the vital scenes more engaging. Yet, it is a testament to everyone involved that this play could be described as Jordan-esque; his nuances are so original and exciting that I still left the play feeling briefly elevated – although unfortunately, the play never quite grabbed me from my chair, dropped my jaw and left me reeling like I wanted it to. If Jordan directed a film version of this script, I would go to see it in a heartbeat.
