'Summerfolk' review — this impeccably cast revival of a Russian classic has strong contemporary relevance

Read our review of Maxim Gorky’s play Summerfolk, now in performances at the National Theatre to 29 April.

Summary

• Maxim Gorky’s play Summerfolk is revived at the National Theatre
• The story is set in 1904 and features Russian middle-class holidaymakers
• Nina Raine and Moses Raine supply a new contemporary adaptation
• The strong ensemble cast includes Sophie Rundle and Justine Mitchell

If you’ve never seen Maxim Gorky’s Summerfolk, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was Chekhov. Here we are in the Russian countryside at the height of summer, amid a calendar of picnics, wine, poetry and philosophy, with endless opportunities to quarrel and fall in love.

Except this is 1904, and Chekhov is dying. And rather than a group of aristocrats, as in The Cherry Orchard, these holidaymakers are drawn from Russia’s well-to-do middle class, and they remember all too well what it was like to be poor. In many ways, it feels like a play ripe for revival, speaking clearly to the present moment. At its centre lies a pressing question: does anything really matter when the world is falling apart?

Yet, despite the hazy glow of this new version by siblings Nina Raine and Moses Raine, it’s a message that lands with a heavy hand. Over its lengthy three-hour running time (still a cut from its original), a cast of 23 characters cycles through the spotlight, each reaching for some sense of meaning. Long-standing feuds bubble to the surface, men declare their undying love, and women are pushed aside as hollow extras, valued chiefly as partners and mothers. It is a bleak and empty picture. And tomorrow, they’ll meet again to do exactly the same.

The production is frozen in time, with gorgeous, era-inspired costumes by Peter McKintosh; its contemporary relevance is already plain to see. But the Raine team update the language into modern speech, creating a strange dissonance. Under Robert Hastie’s direction, cast members drift in and out as if on a circuit, in scenes of small talk and grander theorising. There are so many of them that, at times, it becomes difficult to keep track. Still, the ensemble is impeccably cast.

At the centre of it all is Sophie Rundle’s Varvara, a woman slowly detaching from the rest of the summerfolk and growing ever more tired of her obnoxious husband Sergei (a sickening, but very funny, Paul Ready). Elsewhere, Sid Sagar’s Dudakov is an overworked doctor, longing for a taste of freedom, while his wife Olga (Gwyneth Keyworth) feeds off the group’s gossip but is left to care for the children. Then there’s the chase between Justine Mitchell’s Maria Lvovna and the much younger Vlass (a flailing, sarcastic Alex Lawther), who is convinced she is the object of his undying affection.

Is it a little insufferable? Well, of course. There’s navel-gazing aplenty, with constant talk of actors and writers. But that’s also the point. McKintosh’s set stretches summer into long, carefree days, with water to paddle in and an expanse of green to roam. Better, perhaps, to forget it all and simply enjoy ourselves, for as we're told, “the life of any thinking person is a tragedy”.

Summerfolk is at the National Theatre to 29 April. Book Summerfolk tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Summerfolk (Photos by Johan Persson)