A peaceful train ride. The quiet chugging settling you like the rhythmic rocking of a cradle. Maybe a paper to pass the time. And then a man, completely uninvited, strikes up a conversation, explaining how and why he was driven to kill his wife.
Based on Tolstoy’s 1889 novella, which was censored in Russia and the US for promoting sexual abstinence when it was first published, Nancy Harris’s adaptation is driven forward by Hilton McRae’s Pozdynyshev, the only speaking character in the production. His performance is remarkably still yet engrossing. Much of his monologue is delivered from his wooden train seat; he rises only to light a cigarette or take a drink.
In the Chloe Lamford-designed enlarged train cabin, murkily lit by hanging lamps, Pozdynyshev explains at length the circumstances of his murderous act and subsequent acquittal, from his earliest introduction to sex at the hands of a businesslike prostitute to the conception of his many children and the jealous rage created by the relationship between his wife and old friend Trukhachevski.
McRae’s arrogant, sure, untrustworthy Pozdynyshev does not seem, however, to be arguing for sexual abstinence. Instead, the production presents a troubled misogynist who blames women for wanting to be desired and rarely seems to have a good word to say about his opposite sex. Would his life have been any better without intercourse in it? He might not have murdered, but I am sure he would have found something else to vex him.
While McRae’s performance commands the stage for the play’s 85 minutes, Natalie Abrahami’s production simply but cleverly builds an atmosphere around him. Music, central to the relationship which may or may not have been an affair, drifts in and out, complementing Pozdynyshev’s speech, jarring with it, rising and falling with his anger and love. As he remembers his wife, projections and performances behind a gauze screen conjure his memories, be they truth or fancy.
While an hour and a half stuck in a carriage with a man who murdered his wife might not be the ideal journey, it certainly beats watching the scenery between London Bridge and East Croydon.
MA