Review: THE KREUTZER SONATA, Arcola Theatre, 12 July 2016

Over an intense 90 minutes, we hear of a murder motivated by jealousy and a psychotic misogyny that these days would infect the Twitter feeds of famous women. There's humour of the darkest hue too in the relentless denigration of love and lust - sometimes recalling Woody Allen's parodies of Russian novels (specifically his 1975 movie "Love and Death"). And there's the angular, shifting, spiteful presence of Greg Hicks - protagonist, perpetrator and narrator - mad but lucid in that most chilling of personality trait combinations.

The production is, as is often the case with the best monologues, both compelling, but hard to watch. One finds oneself longing for a bit of release - and some does come from musical interludes, expertly played by Alice Pinto and Phillip Granell (who has a look of Beethoven, composer of the eponymous sonata and inspiration for Harry Sever's unnerving melodies) - but our man is determined to justify the supreme act of hate with a litany of reasons. The depth of his loathing for the human race - especially those representatives most close to him - becomes almost hypnotic.

Hicks commands the space, occasionally moving seats as the train travels over the bleak Russian steppes, whistles and shouts in the background alerting us to the journey. His angular frame and creased features seem to point at us, the whole person becoming a finger, accusing us of failing to be fully human for our want of his inhuman self-obsession. There is always that nagging feeling though - especially for those who may have a similar experience of matrimony over the years - that there are just enough inconvenient truths to keep us interested.

After all the controversy the novella has attracted over the years, Tolstoy's coruscating prose and psychological perception has inspired many adaptations of this work on stage and screen - to which one can add John Terry's fine stage version, revived at the Arcola Theatre until 23 July.

Photo Ciaran Dowd

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