A PLAY performed in Russian with English subtitles may not sound like everybody's idea of fun.
And you'd be right to have misgivings, as Boris Godunov is very difficult to follow.
Don't get my wrong - I'm not one of those arrogant Brits who expects everything to be performed in their mother tongue but this is an incredibly wordy and involved piece. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who struggled to keep up with what was going on.
The production, being performed at the Lowry by the acclaimed theatre company Cheek By Jowl, looks amazing and the play's theme, about how power corrupts some of those who rules us, will never cease to be relevant.
However, the linguistic barrier makes it very difficult to review the performances as you simply have no idea how the lines should be delivered in the first place. Although, that said, Pushkin's vocabulary is rich and effusive. To say he can write well would probably be a good contender for understatement of the year.
The Quays Theatre was full of terribly serious looking people on Tuesday night, people wearing the sort of facial expressions that you'd usually find in a Chekov play. This is definitely not for people who have never been to the theatre before as it could put them off for life and it definitely wasn't for me, comrade. Rick Bowen
* Until Saturday
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
Print
Email this
Comment
