In the 1960s, a young Dame Judi Dench and a younger Sir Ian McKellen worked together for the first time on the London stage in a Russian play by Aleksei Arbuzov. Their joint venture, "The Promise," enjoyed great success; so much so, that the production crossed the ocean and landed on Broadway.
Unfortunately, the show fizzled in New York; in 1970's Cold War America, a Russian play performed by foreign actors simply didn't sell tickets.
Skip ahead to 2005: Boston director Lilia Levitina stumbles upon the script and her company, Basement on the Hill Stage, produces the New England premiere at the Boston Center for the Arts (BCA). What this latest staging proves above all else is that, given a little time and a more receptive audience, "The Promise" has an awesome ability to transcend time and geography.
Without a doubt, the best elements of this production are Arbuzov's durable script and Levitina's "high-art" conceptual direction. The former derives its strength from a healthy balance of politics and characters. While the action is framed by the torrential socio-political climate of a war-torn Leningrad, the story unfolds with an unmarked progression all of its own.
For the director, this production denotes a step up from the cramped, non-theatrical space of the BCA's Leland Center where she directed her last several shows to the larger and more legitimate BCA Black Box Theater. (Think of it as moving from off-Broadway to Broadway, but all within one building.)
The best word to describe Levitina's directorial concept of this performance would be textured. True to her trademarked risk-taking, she makes some very bold choices. The most obvious is the decision to insert eerie music between lines of dialogue.
At first, this addition to the soundscape of the play is unsettling, not only because of its unconventionality in the theater, but also due to the music's disconcerting resemblance to the odd theme from the film "12 Monkeys." By the end, however, this tactic pays off as it provides another tangible element to the story that allows the audience to connect on a non-verbal, non-intellectual level.
In addition to the music, the production uses other methods to remind the audience of alternative means of storytelling. Punctuating the three scenes of the play which take place over a period of time in Leningrad's history are Russian film clips of the appropriate time period.
As the newsreels play, the shadows of the actors preparing the set for the next scene blend into the black-and-white footage. This, in turn, creates an amazing metaphor for the way in which the characters are trapped by their political surroundings.
The decision to mix film with theater covers up the usual tediousness of having to watch the actors make set changes. Yet this kind of inventiveness is not surprising coming from Levitina. She is familiar with working in found spaces, where some set changing sleight-of-hand is necessary to hide the mechanisms of theater. She demonstrates her ability to create a rich production that still retains a sense of closeness even in the larger Black Box space.
Levitina also sheds some of her usual directing habits in this new production. Specifically, she often has some very intimate interactions onstage, but in this play, she does not even extend a kiss for more than a few seconds. The result is interesting: so much is left unsaid between the characters that it almost cries out for human touch. At the same time, her decision to steer clear of that path represents a new step for her directing style.
This is not to say there is no movement to the production. Much of the play is communicated through the actors' wild physicality and beautifully sculpted stage pictures. Instead of adding obvious sexually symbolic interactions to the play, Levitina pulls back as a director and allows the story to tell itself. This recognition of the necessary changes involved in working in a larger space reflects a theatrical maturity on Levitina's part.
If the production can be faulted in any area, it must be the ensemble work. Maybe the director spent a little too much time conceptualizing the production, or perhaps the piece is too demanding for the young actors.
In any case, the performances of the three cast members rarely "gel" the way the script demands. In a play about comradeship, it often feels as if the characters step out of each others' way more than as if they create moments cooperatively.
Individually, the young actors have great energy and enthusiasm for the roles. Yet as much as they seem to understand their respective characters, they ultimately fail to communicate their recognition of the ensemble's collective "character."
Though the ensemble never really fulfills expectations, their energy certainly engages the audience to the point where it can begin to enjoy all the aspects of this layered production.
Levitina demonstrates her ability to create a rich production that still retains a sense of closeness even in the larger Black Box space
