The Power Of Darkness: Crime and Punishment

"Are you sure this was written by Tolstoy or was it Neil LaBute," asked my guest as we exited The Mint Theatre's impressive production of The Power Of Darkness, the great novelist's play which was banned when first written in 1886 and has rarely been produced in this country.  I must admit the same thought crossed my mind while watching Leo Tolstoy's morally challenged characters perform disgusting acts of cruelty and murder to young and old alike while cursing up a storm.

Tolstoy based his drama on the sensational case of a Russian peasant tried for murder as described to him by a friend, the court prosecutor.  After submitting the finished draft to the spiritual censors, as was required, performance and publication rights were refused, particularly for the inclusion of a particularly gruesome scene I won't describe here.  After its 1888 world premiere in Paris, The Power of Darkness was seen throughout Europe before performances in the author's homeland were finally permitted in 1895.  The great Yiddish Theatre actor Jacob Adler starred in his own translation in New York in 1904 and The Theatre Guild mounted the play's first English-language production on Broadway in 1920.

Largely obscure plays with high pedigree authorship are the specialty of the house at The Mint, and once again they amaze in their capability to whip up a gorgeously detailed period production in such a small Off-Broadway space.  Taking place in and around a spacious peasant hut in the village of Tula, Bill Clark's versatile set, Jeff Nellis' lights and Holly Poe Durbin's costumes emphasize the beauty and dignity of the peasant Russian community.

The play is centered on farmhand Nikita (Mark Ahadeff), who has a way with the ladies.  He works for the sickly, but tyrannical Pyotr (Peter Bretz), and has been carrying on an affair with his employer's second wife, the young Anisya (Angela Reed).  When Pyotr dies via circumstances that aren't quite natural, Nikita marries Anisya, who turns her inherited wealth over to him as head of the household.  In turn, Nikita takes on Pyotr's teenage daughter, through his first marriage, Akulina (Anne Letscher), as his mistress and new lady of the house.  Then there's also the matter of the orphan girl, Marina (Letitia Lange), who Nikita has impregnated.

Director Martin Platt's production, played by a talented ensemble, is gracefully staged and attention grabbing despite many lengthy and talkative scenes in the three hour long evening. (The Mint plays the first three acts in and hour and forty-five minutes before intermission comes.  The fourth and fifth are played in fifty-five minutes.)  His adaptation is loaded with words such as "fuck, "bitch" and the like.  I'll leave it to the literary scholars to determine if these words are an accurate equivalent to those that Tolstoy used, but to the modern ear they take away from the authenticity of watching an 1880's drama, particularly when a frustrated Nikita yells out, "Women!  Fuckin' women!"

If Nikita's heartless actions and the way he deals with his mounting guilt gets a bit too hard to believe at times, Ahadeff is fully committed to the material and does an admirable job of making it as believable as possible.  Especially strong performances are also delivered by Reed, as the wife who takes steps to make her life better only to have them backfire on her, and by Randy Danson, who injects some humor into the evening as Nikita's scheming mother.

The Power Of Darkness is not a great play, but it is still emotionally gripping in The Mint's striking production and quite worth seeing.

Photos by Rahav Segev/Photopass 2007:  Top:  Mark Ahadeff and Angela Reed; Angela Reed and Randy Danson; Mark Ahadeff

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