8 / 10
Gorky’s script has been given an idiosyncratic and often ribald updating by siblings Nina Raine and Moses Raine that will be divisive but which I found hugely entertaining. A play about inaction brings its own problems, however: as domestic spats and doomed flirtations play out, you wait in vain for something significant to happen. Perhaps it’s best to approach Summerfolk as a mood.
6 / 10
nd of course Chekhov is the melancholically amusing elephant in the bittersweet room here. His plays about the same sort of people set in the same sort of time are so deathlessly popular – not to mention, good – that it’s hard not to compare and contrast. Summerfolk is a fine play but it’s the moments where this production feels less like Chekhov – when it’s broader or angrier – that it really distinguishes itself. Still, history suggests we’re looking at something like a 25-year gap until it gets staged again. So this is a generational production, really, and whatever its flaws are, they shouldn’t put you off seeing the sort of luxury revival that the NT was made for.
It’s a hot, beautiful summer in 1905, and Russia’s elite retreat to the countryside to swim, sip champagne and start affairs. When they’re having this much fun, why care about anything else? But Varvara just can’t shake the feeling that their holiday idyll is built on borrowed time. As the party continues, how long can they ignore the storm on the horizon?
Splendid new adaptation of a play that can be seen as a respectful response to The Cherry Orchard
The National Theatre has released photos of Nina Raine and Moses Raine’s new version of Maxim Gorky’s Summerfolk, a razor-sharp portrait of class, privilege and denial.
The National Theatre has released rehearsal images for Nina Raine and Moses Raine’s new version of Maxim Gorky’s Summerfolk, a razor-sharp portrait of class, privilege and denial. Check out the photos here!
