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THE WHITE GUARD
Review

THE WHITE GUARD

June 13 2011

THE WHITE GUARD, Sydney Theatre Company at the Sydney Theatre, June 11-10 July 2011. Photos: Lisa Tomasetti

How exhilarating: Andrew Upton’s adaptation of one of Stalin’s favourite plays is a cracking success. Quite why Stalin liked it so much and did not instead arrest the playwright – or worse – is a mystery; it’s not exactly a paean to the Soviets and neither does it come down heavily on the various foes of the Revolution; but it’s wildly entertaining – maybe the crapulous old murderer just longed for some fun thinly disguised as political polemic. Or maybe it’s the opposite. Who knows? As it is, Upton’s sparkling version of The White Guard – initiated by Howard Davies in 2010 for the National Theatre – arrives in Sydney trailing huzzas and plaudits from its London production.

Set in Kiev, in 1918-19, as the Tsarist White Guard opposes not only the ascendant Red Army but also the raggle-taggle and multi-coloured Ukrainian nationalists and other combatants, the insane mixture of post-war, post-revolution, pre-civil war turbulence is dizzying. The Turbins – Elena and her brothers Alexi and Nikolai and their various friends and relatives – are hopelessly caught up in this terrifying confusion as the Bolshevik army’s big guns draw ever closer and the Ukrainians’ German allies prepare to abandon their puppet government and scuttle home to the Fatherland.

Prominent in this regime is Talberg, Elena’s husband and the perfectly pompous deputy minister for war. He arrives home for his suitcase before leaving “just for two months”. Adding indignantly to Elena, “I am not running away, I am escaping.” He has important diplomatic business in Berlin, so, “That is the official reason for my departure. Deputy war ministers do not ‘run away’, they are called away.” As delivered by Alan Dukes from beneath a magisterial moustache, the deputy minister’s pronouncements – like the man himself – are at once chilling and absurd.

On the other side of the human and moral divide, Alexi (Darren Gilshenan) and Nikolai (Richard Pyros) resolve to stay and fight – for their honour and their duty. Elena (Miranda Otto) watches them all with dreadful resignation, trying instead to maintain their home in some semblance of normality. She prepares food, organizes baths, finds clean clothes, comforts them, welcomes friends and even a stray and unexpected cousin who turns up and – inevitably – joins the rest of the men in falling in love with her. Vodka is drunk, songs are sung and the war creeps ever closer as some rats desert the sinking ship while others keep an eye out for the main chance and merely change their uniforms and loyalties.

As the local bigwig, the Hetman (Jonathan Biggins) is a thoroughly bewildered chief rat; for him the prospect of defeat and the treachery of the Germans is beyond imagining. Naturally it’s his underlings who understand the real state of affairs and make their preparations. The great achievement of Mikhail Bulgakov (and his 21st century adapter) is in realising through comedy the awfulness and futility of war and the pettiness of so many of its leaders and political masters. No wonder Stalin failed to detect the wild satire beneath the laughter, even though he apparently saw the play 15 times.

THE WHITE GUARD

The play slips seamlessly back and forth between the warmth of family life and domesticity to the chill of war and political betrayal. This is brilliantly achieved through Alice Babidge’s remarkable set and intelligently ranged costumes. The Sydney Theatre’s tall proscenium frames a once almost-elegant, now tatty apartment where a wood stove struggles to keep the winter cold at bay and the family and their friends gather. It gives way to an even chillier, more spacious palace – where the Hetman struts amid non-palatial military office furnishings – and which in turn gives way through Nick Schlieper’s lighting and Steve Francis’s soundscape – to the gloom and loneliness of the modern battlefront.

Director Andrew Upton has been obliged to re-adapt his NT adaptation for a smaller cast than could be afforded in London. Some among the Sydney company of 14 take on double and even triple roles, many wigs, costume changes and different accents and do it with deceptive ease: it’s an ensemble work with standouts, but an ensemble nonetheless. Upton’s achievement here – in keeping the sprawling story and its many tellers on course and in focus – has to be his best work to date and the final result is an enthralling, unexpectedly hilarious and moving, massive historical saga of tiny, personal moments. As well as those mentioned, the fine cast is made up of Patrick Brammall, Yure Covich, Alan Dukes, Cameron Goodall, John Leary, Ashley Lyons, Dale March, Tahki Saul and Aaron Tsindos.

Last, but certainly not least, Alan John not only plays three roles, but also has contributed to the production’s seemingly spontaneous choral singing of folk songs and stirring ballads. The fragments of songs underline and punctuate the action and the standard of a capella singing John has coached out of the cast is high enough to bring tears to a genuine Russian soldier’s eye. The White Guard is at once merrily entertaining and tragically, as pertinent today as it was in 1926.

 

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