Children of the Sun by Maxim Gorky.
Adapted by Andrew Upton. Directed by Kip Williams. Sydney Theatre Company. Drama Theatre. Sydney Opera House. September 8 - October 25 2014.
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
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| Toby Truslove as Protasov, Helen Thomson as Melaniya in Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Children of the Sun © Brett Boardman 2014 |
Flames flicker through the swirling ring of smoke that wafts
across the stag . Rioters are storming the gates of Yelena (Justine Clarke) and
Protasov’s (Toby Truslove) prestigious country residence as Andrew Upton’s new
version of Maxim Gorky’s prophetic vision of the collapse of Russia’s
privileged class reaches its powerful climax in the Sydney Theatre Company’s
production of Children of the Sun.
Gorky wrote the play while in prison for his involvement as
an activist after the failed 1905 revolution. Children of the Sun is set in 1860’s Tsarist Russia, when the seeds
of discontent that would eventually see the overthrow of the Tsarist regime in
1917 were already germinating in a nation divided by the injustices of a
privileged class system. Gorky’s characters reflect the intense divide between
wealth and poverty, privilege and disadvantage. The preoccupation with
individual concern, couched in the obsessive nature of Protasov’s scientific inventions,
or the desperate nature of lovesick passion of a class unconcerned with the
social issues of their time is set in stark contrast to the desperate struggles
of an oppressed class. This comes to the fore with violet consequence when the
copper lining of Protasov’s experimental well leaks, polluting the water and
leading to the outbreak of a deadly cholera epidemic in the village. Oblivious
to consequence and impervious to responsibility, Gorky’s aristocratic
characters lay the foundations for their own doom. Only the depressive Liza
(Jacqueline Mckenzie) subsumed by the cruel injustices of a world of war and
starvation possesses the political wisdom and foresight to prophesy a vision of
portending doom. Her real world, clouded over by the ignorance of those about
her, remains unheeded and explained as a delusionary obsession arising from her
fragile mental state.
Contrasting with Liza’s prophetic warning is the fickle
absurdity of unrequited love that makes fools of Gorky’s poor mortals. The
country vet, Boris (Chris Ryan) proclaims his passionate adoration of Liza. The
artist Vageen (Hamish Michael) declares his love for Yelena to no avail. The
widow, Melanya (Helen Thomson) is enslaved by her infatuation with the
oblivious Protasov. The maid Feema (Contessa Treffone) is drawn towards the
animal strength of the estate’s labourer, the rough-hewn Yegor (Yure Covich)
and ignores the wimpish protestations of love by Misha (James Bell), son of the
village official Nazar (Jay Laga’aia). Nanny (Valerie Bader) longs for an order
that she sees crumbling about her, sliding irrevocably towards decay, while
those about her inhabit their world of fanciful and farcical delusion.
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| Justine Clarke as Yelena in Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Children of the Sun © Brett Boardman 2014 |
Andrew Upton’s unabashedly contemporary version,
initially commissioned by the National Theatre of Great Britain, maintains the
conventions of the period while thrusting the language into the twenty-first
century. Out of the mouths of characters of Russia in the nineteenth century
comes the colourful vernacular of our time. And yet, I am unperturbed by the
utterance of “bonkers” from the mouth of Boris or Liza’s four letter
expletives. Upton, craftily and expertly affords our ears the power of
relevance without distorting our sensitivity to the time. Gorky’s indictment of
a decaying class and his observance of the foible of human nature remain
preserved. His indebtedness to Chekov in the perception of his people, the
incisive observance of self-indulgence and the pervading atmosphere of futile
existence permeate the lives of his characters. Shades of Ibsen’s The Enemy of the People resonates with
the contamination of the water supply and Liza’s eloquent and impassioned
announcement of her intention to leave Protasov echoes the desperate need of
Ibsen’s Nora in A Doll’s House. They
are moments that anchor the profundity of Gorky’s narrative within a play that
is at times hilariously farcical, ironically comical, seriously melodramatic, poignantly prophetic and ultimately tragic.
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| Justine Clarke as Yelena;Julia Ohannessian as Avdotya in Children of the Sun. Sydney Theatre Company. Photograph by Brett Boardman |
Upton’s adaptation combined with director Kip Williams’s
inspired and volatile direction offer a fusion of the riveting forces of
dramatic engagement. We are drawn irrevocably both into a time of forces of
social change and historical consequence and the reverberating echoes of
relevance to our own time of political, social and economic unrest. David
Fleischer’s inescapably symbolic set design of theatre flats on a revolving
set, which at times reveal the authentic interiors of a Russian stately home
and at other times the reverse side of timber flats, supported by French legs
stabilized by sandbags allows Williams and his cast the fluid and continuous
traversing of the large stage. The fluidity of this production is also the
pronouncement of a restless uncertainty, brimming with uneasy expectation,
leading the characters and the audience towards the final conflagration. As the
play advances towards its denouement, the flats are laid down as a gesture of
the collapse of a class that had lost all vestige of political ideology and an
awareness of the divisive nature of their blind ignorance. Children of the Sun is Gorky’s prophetic pronouncement of history’s
inevitable consequence and this production’s testament to the lasting relevance
of universal resistance to history’s lessons for all humanity.
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| Justine Clarke as Yelena, Jacqueline McKenzie as Liza, Toby Truslove as Protasov in Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Children of the Sun © Brett Boardman 2014 |
Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Children of the Sun is more than a revival of a classic. It is a
brilliantly and sensitively staged version of Gorky’s comedy of human folly,
respectful of the play’s style, its humour, its prophetic pathos and profound
intent, yet cognizant of its relevance to our time and circumstance. Williams
directs an impeccable cast with flair and imagination that lend the production
both gravitas and piercing irony. Children
of the Sun is a must see triumph in the Sydney Theatre Company’s illustrious repertoire.
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| Justine Clarke as Yelena, Jacqueline McKenzie as Liza, Helen Thomson as Melaniya in Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Children of the Sun © Brett Boardman 2014 |