NE Review: Marriage of Music and Middle-Aged Angst Marks "The Kreutzer Sonata"

"The Kreutzer Sonata"

A play adapted from Leo Tolstoy's novella

Written by Larry and Margaret Pine

Music by Ludwig Van Beethoven

Additional music composition by Margaret Pine

Directed by Margaret Pine

Sound Design by Margaret Pine

Scene and Costume Design by David Zinn

Lighting Design by Dan Kotlowitz

With Larry Pine as Pozdnyshev

Pianist, Bonnie Anderson

Violinist, Piotr Buczek

Performances: Now through January 29

Box Office: 978-454-3926 or www.merrimackrep.org

No one does darkly comic guilt-ridden middle-aged angst quite like the Russian classicists. Men brood, women are victimized, and characters inevitably make fateful choices that cause their own paradoxical demise. It's Greek Tragedy without the chorus. It's also scathing social commentary.

"The Kreutzer Sonata," currently receiving its world premiere at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell, Mass., is Larry and Margaret Pine's spirited adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novella of the same title. In its day, the book was banned for its open discussions about sex and marital jealousies. Now the Pines have crafted a one-man play that is as penetrating today in its examination of romantic futility as the book must have been shocking in its exposure of repressed desires during Tolstoy's time.

The play, performed without intermission, cleverly weaves moody chamber music within the fabric of the narrative as told by Tolstoy's alter-ego, Pozdnyshev, the bewildered and hapless husband who alternately confesses and rationalizes his behavior as he describes himself as a "filthy pig who imagined he was an angel." From his perch aboard a Victorian-era sleeper car on a train bound for home, Pozdnyshev, played with pitch-perfect precision by veteran stage and screen actor Larry Pine, methodically deconstructs his courtship, marriage, and self-indulgent life while somehow managing also to draw the audience's sympathy.

The main arc of the play is Pozdnyshev's increasing jealousy toward his wife's musical companion, a violinist who brings roses to her cheeks when he plays duets with her at the piano. Though unsubstantiated, the husband's suspicions of infidelity escalate into paranoia and, ultimately, rage. His efforts first to talk himself out of his jealousy, then to justify it, provide the bulk of the dramatic tension – as well as the dark humor.

Pine draws the audience into his unfolding intrigue much as a gypsy storyteller would engross eager children. He teases, acts the innocent, revels in opulent detail, and almost wins us over with boyish charm and narcissism. Then suddenly he reveals stunning truths with such cold simplicity that you wonder if his Pozdnyshev has any heart at all. Pine gives an artfully choreographed performance, directed with a subtle but biting edge by his wife, Margaret, and timed effortlessly to ebb and flow with the evocative music that underscores every shift in emotion.

About two thirds of the way through "The Kreutzer Sonata," the Beethoven piece after which Tolstoy's novella and this play were named is performed – ostensibly during a gala soiree planned by Pozdnyshev's wife and her violinist friend (Bonnie Anderson and Piotr Buczek). During their beautiful and rousing performance, which is staged impressively behind a lighted scrim on a platform above the sleeper compartment, Pine as Pozdnyshev reacts – first with appreciation, then with boredom, and finally with hostility as the duet builds into a passionate climax. The musical metaphor is not lost on Pine's husband or the audience. His jealousy is inflamed further by the obvious chemistry between his wife and her playing partner, and he helplessly barrels further out of control, like a runaway train hurled forward by its own momentum.

With "The Kreutzer Sonata" Merrimack Repertory Theatre has once again demonstrated its ability to present daring new works with skill and panache. David Zinn's magnificent Orient Express-like set and elegant period costumes, Dan Kotlowitz's superb lighting design, and Margaret Pine's outstanding music and sound effects combine to draw the audience into another world – one of declining splendor and grim foreshadowing. All work fluidly to enhance but never obscure Larry Pine's intricate and multi-layered performance.

Perhaps the doomed marriage of Tolstoy's generation between Pozdnyshev and his beleaguered wife never had a chance. But the fine marriage of music and drama in this generation's "The Kruetzer Sonata" definitely deserves an encore.

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