{"id":4595,"date":"2015-04-02T09:00:53","date_gmt":"2015-04-02T08:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4595"},"modified":"2016-02-05T19:18:46","modified_gmt":"2016-02-05T18:18:46","slug":"anna-karenina-royal-exchange-reviewed-by-peter-wild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4595","title":{"rendered":"Anna Karenina<\/em>, The Royal Exchange, reviewed by Peter Wild"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anna Karenina, Royal Exchange, Manchester, 27th March 2015<\/em><\/p>\n

Swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshshshwish. People are whispering in the Royal Exchange. In front of us, in front of what has to be described as something of a stripped down stageset (a large white box on a metal floor), several people gather holding candles. Swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshwsh. The people behind us \u2013 a father, and two younger girls, possibly his daughters or a daughter and a friend \u2013 continue to whisper. Swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshshshwish. It\u2019s immensely distracting. The play, an adaptation of Tolstoy\u2019s immense novel, originally published in instalments between 1873 and 1877 and described as flawless by both Dostoyevsky and Nabokov \u2013 described as the best novel ever written by William Faulkner, championed by Woolf and Joyce, regarded as a transitional work between \u2013 Swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshshshwish \u2013 realistic novels and modernist novels \u2013 Swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshshshwish \u2013 is beginning properly.<\/p>\n

For those of you who have yet to wrestle with the book itself and are perhaps wondering how 900+ pages of Russian literature can be transformed into an approximately two hour play, the short answer is by brutally truncating a lot of the \u2013 Swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshshshwish \u2013 action (Levin only proposes once, Anna doesn\u2019t almost die in childbirth, Vronsky doesn\u2019t attempt suicide). There are three principal arcs in the play: the trajectory of Anna and Vronsky\u2019s doomed love affair; the relationship between Anna\u2019s youngest sister Kitty and Levin, a family friend; and the relationship between Anna\u2019s older sister, Dolly, and her husband, Oblonsky. Introduced to the latter first, Oblonsky, a comic, shady figure has cheated on his wife with their governess and been found out. Anna (arriving on a train, in the company of the woman we learn is Vronsky\u2019s mother) takes Oblonsky\u2019s side and persuades Dolly to give him another chance. Meanwhile, Anna \u2013 introduced to Vronsky at the station (their eyes meet, an intrusive sound effect lets you know, in case you were worried you\u2019d missed something, that THIS IS A SIGNIFICANT EVENT \u2013 the sound effect also serves to let you know that possibly this grand novel is being adapted by people who worry about the intelligence of their audience and feel the need to rely on sound effects rather than acting to transmit a major event) \u2013 meets him again at the coming out ball of her sister, Kitty. Kitty has been working her magic on Vronsky and expects him to propose. She is, of course, disappointed. As is Levin, who actually does propose to her.<\/p>\n

Swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshshswish, though. Swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshshshwish. Swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshshshwish. Swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshshshwish. We turn around. We stare. We are stared back at in return. Swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshshshwish. Swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshshshwish. Across the aisle, another gentleman begins to talk with his wife. It is as if she can\u2019t quite figure out what is going on and it\u2019s rankling her a bit. He attempts to explain to her: swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshshshwish. Not to be outdone, the people behind us swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshshshwish and swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshshsh and swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshshshwish. Thankfully (for us) the Royal Exchange is not full. We start to scout the rows of empty seats opposite us for a place we can move to.<\/p>\n

However, we must not let ourselves be distracted untowardly from our appreciation, or otherwise, of the Royal Exchange\u2019s adaptation of Anna Karenina<\/em>. If we are considering details and the way in which details can accrete to give you a firm grasp on whether a particular play is working for you or not, we must consider Kitty\u2019s coming out ball. Vronsky dances with Kitty. Stately music is playing. And then Anna appears in a very beautiful black dress. Vronsky has eyes for no-one else. The two of them dance. The stately music gives way to a contemporary pop song (we don\u2019t know the contemporary pop song but it sounds like Sade fronting an Anthony and the Johnsons covers band) and Anna and Vronsky dance seductively, their wrists intertwined and somewhat slappy (we were reminded of the rather slappy love scene between Jeremy Irons and Juliet Binoche in Louis Malle\u2019s Damage<\/em>, a love scene that elicited laughter from people in the cinema way back in 1992 \u2013 we were also reminded of the scene in Wayne\u2019s World<\/em> where Wayne sees Cassandra for the first time and the rock song Cassandra is playing gives way to Gary Wright\u2019s Dreamweaver \u2013 the transition is a bit crass is what we\u2019re saying). The dance goes on for WAY TOO LONG. We get the point. They\u2019re into each other. We desire them to move on. They do not move on. The intertwined wrists slappy dance goes on.<\/p>\n

At this point, a young couple meekly left. By the time you reach the dance you kind of know it\u2019s not going to get better. Kudos to the couple willing to sacrifice the price of their seats in order to get their Friday night back. Your humble reviewer, however, remained \u2013 Swssshshshshsshwishwishsh \u2013 in his seat in order to fully translate to you the experience of witnessing what is essentially a gallop through the immensity of Anna Karenina. Some scenes are fine. They do the job. Others \u2013 I\u2019m thinking of the way in which they choose to translate Vronsky\u2019s day at the races, a pair of Perspex flaps raised, Anna\u2019s husband Karenin pelting her with mud (there is a lot of mud in this particular production \u2013 they could introduce a brief foray into a full cast rendition of \u2018Mud, Glorious Mud\u2019 at this point \u2013 it would certainly lift proceedings), Vronsky\u2019s nag nowhere to be seen, a less than rudimentary grasp of the book probably leaving you in some doubt as to WHAT IS ACTUALLY GOING ON \u2013 work less well. A fair bit of the acting is of the \u2018if I have to show an emotion, I need to show it on my face in a way that even idiots can understand\u2019, so we get a lot of very wide eyed, very emotive, posturing. Elements of the production feel somewhat amateur. Elements of the production feel somewhat sixth form. It\u2019s hard to care. Certainly your reviewer didn\u2019t have the best of times. Even after we moved, the play didn\u2019t improve. So the experience wasn\u2019t entirely down to incredibly rude people who apparently don\u2019t know you shouldn\u2019t talk incessantly in a theatre.<\/p>\n

It takes all sorts, though. And one man\u2019s meat etc. As we emerged, blinking, grateful (above all grateful) into the lobby of the Royal Exchange, a pair of old dears in front of us had the following exchange:<\/p>\n

First old dear: That was good, that, wasn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

Second old dear: It was. It was very <\/i>good.<\/p>\n

So what do we know? Perhaps it was good after all \u2013 perhaps it was very good<\/i>. Your humble reviewer, however, will choose to file this alongside other Royal Exchange misfires (the adaptation of Macbeth<\/em> set in a concentration camp, Filter Theatre Company\u2019s version of Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/em>, Julie Hesmondhalgh\u2019s first post Coronation Street<\/em> endeavour Blindsided<\/em>) and politely exit stage left, pursued by bear.<\/p>\n

Peter Wild<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anna Karenina, Royal Exchange, Manchester, 27th March 2015 Swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshshshwish. People are whispering in the Royal Exchange. In front of us, in front of what has to be described as something of a stripped down stageset (a large white box on a metal floor), several people gather holding candles. Swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshwsh. The people behind us \u2013 a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[283,17],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nAnna Karenina, The Royal Exchange, reviewed by Peter Wild - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=4595\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Anna Karenina, The Royal Exchange, reviewed by Peter Wild - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Anna Karenina, Royal Exchange, Manchester, 27th March 2015 Swssshshshshsshwishwishshshshshshshwish. 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