Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Tolstoy onstage, unexpectedly: Gob Squad’s WAR AND PEACE and Eifman’s ANNA KARENINA

• By drediman
• April 10, 2018
• No Comments

Tolstoy’s works are undisputed masterworks of world literature. Two novels in particular, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are towering achievements, panoramic works that are at once intense psychological portraits. Over the last week, I’ve had a chance to catch these two great novels re-envisioned for the stage by visiting companies in fascinating adaptations – one by an experimental theater troupe from Berlin, the other via a sensationalist Russian ballet company from St. Petersburg. Interestingly, both came vividly to life onstage, despite their shortcomings (or maybe because of them?).

The company of Gob Squad’s “War and Peace” at NYU Skirball. Copyright: david baltzer / bildbuehne.de.

If you thought Dave Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 was the only unconventional, immersive adaptation of War and Peace, well think again. Another recently blazed into town. Berlin-based Gob Squad has emerged as one of the most compelling and intelligent theater experimentalists (they’ve mastered the use of video within their productions) in Europe. They recently had a chance to bring their version of War and Peace (RECOMMENDED) to NYU’s Skirball Center (Jay Wegman has done a super job in his first year as the institution’s artistic director). Truth be told, Gob Squad doesn’t so much adapt the hefty novel as use it as a springboard for playfully exploring larger philosophical questions regarding the nature of history, the place of us humans in the universe. Audience members hoping to get into the guts of the book may feel short changed, but I found the theater company’s witty, often times hilarious – but totally unrelated tangents – to be a refreshing jolt, perhaps releasing the novel from its realist trappings into the anything goes logic of Gob Squad.

Maria Abashova leads Eifman Ballet’s “Anna Karenina” at the David H. Koch Theater.

In the past, St. Petersburg’s Eifman Ballet – the brainchild of Boris Eifman, which is now celebrating its 40th anniversary – has both intoxicated and repelled me. I first encountered them in Chicago more than fifteen years ago with their biographical Tchaikovsky. Their intensely gothic depictions of troubled minds struck me as sexy and alluringly dark, but also at times overindulgent and kitschy (in many ways, he’s Matthew Bourne’s precursor). But it’s these latter overwrought qualities that have drawn me back again; I’ve subsequently seen Eifman’s take on Onegin, as well as Red Giselle. Which leads us to the ballet company’s take on Anna Karenina (RECOMMENDED), which I thought was an exciting, visceral adaptation. Even Eifman’s occasionally relentless, repetitive, even ridiculous, choreography made sense within the context of the story – Anna, danced so magnetically and heroically by Maria Abashova at the performance I attended, sees Russian society like a menacing machine destined to get the best of her. Although the piece is certainly flawed, I emerged from this passionate piece as shaken as any recent piece of dance I’ve seen (I suspect largely thanks to the lavish live musical accompaniment – Eifman Ballet typically dances to canned music – courtesy of New York City Ballet’s excellent resident orchestra).

WAR AND PEACE
Off-Broadway, Play/Performance
Gob Squad at NYU Skirball Center
1 hour, 45 minutes (without an intermission)
Closed

ANNA KARENINA
Dance
Eifman Ballet at David H. Koch Theater
1 hour, 50 minutes (with one intermission)
Closed