“Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812” (Photo: Evgenia Eliseeva, courtesy of the A.R.T.)
Diane Paulus‘ theatrical vision and aspirations are the driving force behind some of the most successful “immersive” theater events in Boston since she took over as artistic director of the A.R.T. at Harvard*. While previous productions have offered the audience an invitation to participate in these dramatic excursions, the latest Loeb Theater offering isn’t asking politely. From the minute you arrive at the theater, your sovereignty of audience detachment is snatched from you: The entrance and lobby are now a war zone, lost in stanchions of plywood, plastic sheeting and haphazardly affixed Russian posters. Once inside, the theater has become a 19th century Russian drawing room with red velvet curtains and paintings hung salon style, floor to ceiling. The audience is sitting everywhere, alongside musicians and sets, embedded between arabesques of thrust stages and platforms. But this isn’t a pure period-themed creation. It is a rhapsodic and random mashup from Russia’s volatile history over the last 200 years.
Because this time round, it is all about Russia. Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, billed as an “electro-pop” opera, is based loosely on Leo Tolstoy‘s masterpiece, War and Peace. And like Tolstoy’s massive novels, Great Comet wants to take you over, body and soul. Once this show begins, you are irrevocably on a wild theatrical jalopy ride that can’t help but be funky, full-bodied and fun.
Directed by Rachel Chavkin, Great Comet also brings Dave Malloy‘s work back to Boston. Most recently he did Ghost Quartet, Beowulf and Three Pianos (about Schubert’s Winterreise song cycle). As a composer and writer, Malloy speaks to his own proclivities:
I can’t help but notice that almost all of [my work] is adaptions of classic works…there is such rich opportunity for humor and illumination through anachronism, colliding time periods to both highlight the similarities and revel in the bizarre and subtle differences between then and now…too often for my tastes, adaption can rely too heavily on trite ironic distance and parody; for me, the more rewarding choice is always to take these tales at face value, and work to unlock their secrets for contemporary audiences in ways that are joyful, surprising, and ultimately cathartic.
Colliding time periods, humor and anachronism are Malloy’s steady tools. The language, costuming and staging move between early 19th century Tolstoy-esque to present day. Lyrics often speak to our cooly detached, postmodern mind sets:
this is all in your program
You are at the opera
Gonna have to study up a little bit
If you wanna keep with the plot
And it’s a complicated Russian novel
Everyone’s got nine different names
So look it up in your program
Everything will be clear
The singing, dancing, music-making and audience involvement (be ready for Russian potato and cheese concoctions delivered right to your seat) make Great Comet irresistibly fun. How lucky we are to have these theatrical options in Boston. But like attending one more party where the extrovert takes over and entertains us endlessly, the more introverted, subtle, introspective theater experiences are also needed in a city’s theatrical offering mix. As is my perpetual plea on this blog, the both/and, please!
Great Comet runs through January 3 at the Loeb Theater in Cambridge Massachusetts.
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*In addition to the perennially running The Donkey Show at Oberon Theater in Cambridge, other immersive theater offerings from Paulus’ years at the A.R.T. have been reviewed on Slow Muse:
Sleep No More My all time favorite in this category. (A version of this production is currently running in New York)