LOS ANGELES—Moving in the shadow land that borders both dream and memory, Nancy Keystone, who both wrote and directs this play, presents a vibrant stylized representation of an age when the artist was in conflict with the state and was, as a result, hard pressed to resist extinction.
Seen through the eyes of the poets of the period, totalitarianism and creativity were inevitably at odds. The question seems to be, in part, whether the artist’s gift can save him in such circumstances.
Anna Akhmatova (Valerie Spencer) lived through some of the greatest political ferment in history. Born in 1889, she was a witness to the decline of the Czars, saw the Russian Revolution and the rise of Lenin, and lived through the cruel years of Stalinism. During the worst days of the last period she was publicly denounced and spent considerable time in prison.
On the personal side, she mirrored the storms of these political events with a passionate and tumultuous life, including a number of affairs and three marriages, two of which ended in divorce. We see these events through her eyes and the eyes of her fellow poets, Osip Mandelstam (John Prosky), Vladimir Mayakovsky (Christopher Kelley), Marina Tsvetaeva (Sarah Luck Gossage) and Alexander Blok (Russell Edge), most of whom suffered greatly from Bolshevism before they died. Of these besieged contemporaries, Akhmatova was the only true survivor, and even she bore her scars until the end.
Under Keystone’s consummate direction and choreography, the play, which is built on a series of short scenes representing events in the lives of these poets, moves with sustained force and power from beginning to end, even while it is indirectly narrating a chaotic and confusing time in history.
The characters are skillfully delineated as part of the action. Nothing seems to have been left to chance in the telling. We, the audience, can’t help being mesmerized as we watch the main characters move from hope to despair, and in Akhmatova’s case, to a kind of resolution in the end.
Much of the text of this play is Akhmatova’s own poetry in English translation. Keystone makes sure the words come out of her actor’s mouths sounding like genuine conversation, whether those words are directed at other actors onstage or at the audience. Anything less would have made them as stiff as the most unwieldy verse dramas of the last century. It is to her credit as well that she does not let up on the fundamental underlying tension between the characters.
The large ensemble of actors is so uniformly good that it would be unfair to single individuals out. Along with those already mentioned, however, Joe Palmiotti, Miranda Viscoli, Candace Reid, and Natasha Basley must be mentioned. They have obviously all worked hard to create their characters.
The big stage at the Actor’s Gang Theatre makes an ideal playing space for them or for any show like this where it is necessary for the actors to be in constant movement. It also helps to have Randy Tico’s original music integrated into the action.
The Akhmatova Project is, in the final analysis, a powerful study of the struggle of the artist against the state and the often appalling costs of that struggle. Theater doesn’t get any more compelling or meaningful than this
The American Reporter: Poets Against the State
by T.S. Kerrigan