Review: THE LAST DAYS at Russian Academic Youth Theatre

Clever, moving, poetical, and long, watching The Last Days, at Moscow's Russian Academic Youth Theater theatre, feels like enjoying the best part of a poetry recital and the worst part of a jail sentence. At a staggering 3.5+ hours, it is a test of endurance, albeit one full of charm, clever staging, compelling performances, and stirring patriotic speeches.

In the first act of The Last Days, the noble court of Pushkin - friends, lovers, competitors - gather and gavant, speak of poetry and family, drink, laugh, and plot murder. It is a recognizable take on the Pushkin motif, that dreamy, nostalgic look back at the days of romance and duels. Short scenes and tight, elliptical dialogue give the impression of a jewel-crusted chicken running round in circles; it is not until the second half of the act, more or less, that any tension emerges, and the audience is treated to a most un-Pushkinlike take on the Pushkin story. Ghosts (both literary and literal) appear and, rather than wrestle for control of the story - which is historical, after all - they compliment it, reshaping the play from an ellipses of courtly banter to a kaleidoscope of history and literature.

When the lengthy first act ends, it's hard to imagine where we could go next. Home, one assumes, but the cast haven't taken their bows. So we return to our seats for act two, in which we are thrust even further back in time, to the castle of a young Peter the Great, before he is the Great. Here, the comedy is a little more physical; the banter, out of place; and the artistic liberties of the playwright and director, almost insufferable. At one point, Peter, enraged at someone about something, lunges at him - the actors shift to slow motion, intending, I think, to highlight the physical humour, but only serving to remind us that this play already felt like it was moving in slow motion.

Scene by scene, The Last Days is provocative and stirring, romantic and insightful; but hour by hour, it is a challenge, a trek up an almost vertical cliff-face of Russian history and poetry. I have rarely heard such beautiful words in a theatre. I have rarely seen so much shifting of seats, crinkling of programmes, checking of smartphones.

Pace yourself, but by all means, do enjoy.

The Last Days is directed by Alexey Borodin, with text from Mikhail Bulgakov, Alexander Pushkin, and Boris Akunin.

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