I had never heard of Sergei Pavlovich Korolyov before seeing Rona Munro’s new play Little Eagles, which is odd considering the impact this one man seemed to have on recent history.
When the audience first meets Korolyov scrabbling and crawling towards death in the gulag, it is hard to imagine the feats he will go on to achieve. Yet an apparently random choice from the gulag’s new doctor grants him life just as his services are requested elsewhere. It is one small step from designing missiles to designing rockets, and it soon becomes clear that Korolyov is the man who made space exploration possible.
Darrell D’Silva’s brusque, brash Korolyov is driven by his work and his vision, to explore space. He is the man who reached for the stars and knew how to grab hold of them. But, as with so many brilliant men, his success comes at a cost. Everything suffers in the wake of his work; his family, his friendships, his health. His single-mindedness sees him bow to no man, which, in Cold War-era Communist Russia is not the safest of strategies.
Korolyov lies at the centre of Little Eagle’s solar system, his gravitational pull dragging other personalities to orbit around him: the young Yuri Gagarin (Dyfan Dwyfor) who has the same drive as Korolyov but soon has to deal with its frustrating flip-side; the fierce, ambitious Khrushchev who learns that what goes up must come down; and Greg Hicks’s dry, distrusting soldier Geladze, always cynical about the reasons behind Korolyov’s work.
Does Little Eagles boldly go where no play has gone before? Probably not, but in illuminating a little known slice of history – with a touch of artistic license – it offers an evening packed with real, engaging characters proving that however vast the universe may be, you need look no further than the reality of our own world for touching, gripping drama.
MA