Dogs of Europe
Barbican, London
“You will not be relaxed,” warned co-director Natalia Kaliada during the pre-performance talk for the Belarus Free Theatre’s show Dogs of Europe. Placed on each seat in the auditorium was a placard bearing the face of a persecuted Belarusian activist; mine was baby-faced Dmitri Gopta, born 1999, jailed for throwing stones at police vehicles. Every member of the BFT troupe is a refugee, having been arrested, harassed or detained under the country’s dictatorship. This three-hour adaptation of Alhierd Bacharevic’s novel, about a Russian “New Reich” facing down the rest of Europe, sounded like a gruelling prospect.
What a surprise, then, to be constantly beguiled, amused and intrigued over the show’s entire running time by a joyous mix of acrobatics, dance, folk song, clowning, slapstick and absurdism. From underground performances in Minsk, it has been spectacularly opened up for the Barbican stage. (The show’s brief three-night run has now ended.) Images of vast fields and forests projected on a screen behind the actors fly us to the remote village of White Dews in the year 2049, with its riotously eccentric inhabitants.
Drink is quaffed, defiant songs sung and guns waved, sometimes to comic effect, sometimes not. A covert parachutist floats down while trees shuffle about, Birnam Wood-style. Four interlocking trolleys of varying heights on castors become steps, bookshelves and beds. Periodically a naked man trudges across the rear of the stage, effortfully pushing a large globe made out of books. There’s always something fascinating or weird to gaze at.
Kaliada and her co-director Nicolai Khalezin privilege imagery over plot; even with the help of the surtitles projected over the actors’ heads, it’s hard to make out the story. Dogs of Europe is firmly in the east European tradition of satirical obliquity in the face of censorship.
The mockery of the preening military man might be overt, but why does one character always carry around a toy goose? A mysterious “agent” trawls the last bookstores in Europe in search of a poet who always carried a feather. Why a fire dance? Who’s the guy with the accordion? What’s the significance of the naked man running round in circles? With exceptional sound design (Ella Wahlström, the thrilling vocal and musical skills of Marichka and Mark Markzyc) and visual flair (Richard Williamson), it barely matters.
★★★★★
After the End
Theatre Royal Stratford East, London
“Very strong language, nudity . . . violence and sexual violence” — since there are only two characters in Dennis Kelly’s After the End, the caveats constitute spoilers. Louise regains consciousness after a nuclear explosion to find herself safe in an underground bunker belonging to Mark, a work colleague. Outside, she was popular and ambitious, and he was the office dolt: dull, friendless and pedantic. No one more sociable would have built a fallout shelter to begin with. They have two weeks to endure each other before it’s safe to emerge.
Sweary Louise (a pugnacious Amaka Okafor) has never checked her social privilege; being forced to get along with someone she has hitherto despised may prove character-building. Mark (Nick Blood), thrilled at his unexpected access to the office princess, chivalrously takes the top bunk but his obsequiousness soon turns sour over a fraught game of Dungeons and Dragons. Locked within four oppressive walls, their makeshift alliance of hobbit and elf disintegrates into a battle for control.
Sudden, dense blackouts punctuate the action; as the conflict escalates and the humour drips away, there are echoes of Sartre’s claustrophobic play Huis Clos, set in hell, and John Fowles’s terrifying fable The Collector. The explicatory coda proves the only disappointment, a perfunctory wrap-up to a gripping two-hander.
★★★★☆
To March 26, stratfordeast.com
Cock
Ambassadors Theatre, London
Two characters are also locked in strife in Cock, but at least John (the only named character) and M, his boyfriend of seven years, have more room to manoeuvre. Merle Hensel’s minimalist brushed-steel set serves to universalise their conflict and obscure the fact that Mike Bartlett’s play revolves around that well-worn trope, the Angry Dinner Party. On a brief break from the relationship, John has strayed — with a W(oman). He can’t give her up, even after returning gratefully to his male lover. W and M both issue furious ultimatums: John must choose, over a painfully fraught, red wine-fuelled evening. M’s accompanying menu — beef, cheesecake — is thematically apt.
Initially Taron Egerton as M seems more attuned to film than stage acting, his detailed, focused reactions begging for widescreen emphasis. His is the harsher part — hands hanging heavy, he paces, carps and snarls at Jonathan Bailey’s sweet, fumbling John — but the latter’s charming confusion could just mask a determination to have his cake while munching it. Before W’s arrival, M’s jealousy slides into misogyny with jeers at John’s recent splashy activities in W’s “considerable marshland” and “rainforest”. To save M’s face, John has claimed that his female lover is tall and “manly”, the lie blown open when sweet, seductive W (Jade Anouka) finally arrives. M, more vulnerable than he likes to let on, has also invited his F(ather).
With no props, the dinner (like M’s striptease) is mimed, with a cute cocking of the hips to indicate when the party sits down. Phil Daniels gives a touching blue-collar tinge to F’s overwhelming support for his gay son, with a hint that it’s all the more fervent for having been hard-won. W’s stated aims — having children, growing old with John — seem uninspiring in comparison. Ingenious use of the stage revolve means the characters spin around each other, literally on different orbits, approaching, retreating, unable to connect.
Questions of sexual identity and labelling have only become more fraught since the play’s original staging in 2009; F’s assertion that “there’s lots of new words to choose from” sounds like an interpolation. There’s so much to unpick in John’s final statement that he’s settling for the “easier” option. Marianne Elliott’s superb production aims to tweak audience members of any and all persuasions.
★★★★★
To June 4, theambassadorstheatre.co.uk
Five stars for Belarus Free Theatre’s Dogs of Europe and Cock with Taron Egerton
Pinoy Variant