Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Maly Drama Theatre’s LOVE AND INTRIGUE, a Russian adaptation of a Schiller play, is a stylish slow burn

• By drediman
• June 13, 2018
• No Comments

Danila Kozlovsky and Elizaveta Boyarskaya in Maly Drama Theatre’s production of “Love and Intrigue” (adapted from a play by Friedrich von Schiller) at BAM Harvey.

Last night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater, I caught the Maly Drama Theatre’s staging of Love and Intrigue, a Russian adaptation of a play by Friedrich von Schiller (Giuseppe Verdi used the same material for his opera Luisa Miller, which was revived by the Metropolitan Opera this past season). I had seen the Maly Drama Theatre’s classical yet elegantly irreverent productions before and had been struck by the company’s easy yet stylish way of infusing their presentations with a Chekhovian sense of life’s smirking indifference. Their production of Love and Intrigue follows this same mold.

The intermission-less evening was a slow burn and may not be to everyone’s taste. But once I settled into the production’s intentionally subdued and at times sloth-like rhythms, I was able to enjoy and immerse myself more fully in Schiller’s tale of star- and socio-economic-crossed lovers. The production, simply yet strikingly directed by Lev Dodin (who has been long-associated with the St. Petersburg Company), was essentially performed on a bare stage. Throughout the course of the evening, mute, minion-like servants glacially moved tables and chairs onto the stage, eventually creating a finished tableau by the end of the evening. So in effect, the production was one fascinatingly lengthy scene change.

The acting, which veered towards heightened, well-studied character acting, was uniformly very good. Each actor had a firm grasp of how they wanted to present their characters and gave precisely-calibrated performances.

RECOMMENDED

LOVE AND INTRIGUE
Off-Broadway, Play
Maly Drama Theatre at BAM Harvey
2 hours, 15 minutes (without an intermission)
Through June 16