{"id":878,"date":"2014-05-29T16:48:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-29T16:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/?p=878"},"modified":"2014-05-29T16:48:00","modified_gmt":"2014-05-29T16:48:00","slug":"genius-deserves-transfer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/2014\/05\/genius-deserves-transfer.html","title":{"rendered":"Genius Deserves Transfer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image001\"<\/a>At the wonderful, modest Old Red Lion Theatre, above the famous pub in Islington, North London, is a genius play by a 29-year-old, Moses Raine, directed by his not much older, equally skilled sister, Nina Raine. Donkey Heart<\/em> is a Chekhovian drama set in contemporary Russia \u2013 a little comic, a lot wistful, with an undercurrent of past terrors gently meandering though its two acts.<\/p>\n

The pub theatre seats fewer than 60, so the players sometimes almost brush against the knees of those in the two front rows (at right angles to each other) of the audience. The intimacy works, because the actors, who vary in age from 11 or 12 to (I\u2019m guessing) 60, so believe in their roles that they can play them credibly while being able to feel the breath of some of the audience \u2013 there are times when their faces and bodies are as close to those of the audience as to their fellow cast-members.<\/p>\n

It takes place in a flat in Moscow with a shifting population of nine \u2013 though it housed almost double that number in the recent Bad Old Days before the end of the Soviet Union. Raine has written a play that sensitively looks at how difficult life and love are for the young in today\u2019s Russia, while making it clear that at least some of the problems of the young ones are a hangover from the much worse problems faced by their parents and grandparents. It\u2019s Chekhovian in that it doesn\u2019t preach or shout, but makes its points with subtle humour and delicate irony. The actors are marvels, from the young boys who alternate in the role of Kolya to the grandfatherly Patrick Godfrey.<\/p>\n

The story is precipitated by the visit from England of Thomas, who met there and is in love with the young woman, Sasha, daughter, granddaughter and sibling of the flat\u2019s permanent occupiers. Mr Raine has had the brilliant idea \u2013 and it works \u2013 that \u201cwhen the Russian character speak English to Thomas it is spoken with a Russian accent. When the Russian characters talk among themselves they speak English with no accent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nina Raine is herself an accomplished playwright and director, and she has seen to it that her cast has mastered this dialogue trick, so that the audience always knows exactly who can understand whom \u2013 which is sometimes crucial to following events.<\/p>\n

As I said: genius. The run ends in a couple of days. The question, I\u2019d say. Is only where and when will it transfer. It\u2019s good enough to play at the National Theatre (and Faber must agree, as they\u2019ve already published it); and I hope it will transfer with the superb original cast. In fact, I think the play will be even better on a larger stage in a larger auditorium. Much though I enjoyed the intimacy of this premi\u00e8re production, I think it will actually benefit from what we, in the 60s and 70s, used to call \u201caesthetic distance.\u201d<\/p>\n

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At the wonderful, modest Old Red Lion Theatre, above the famous pub in Islington, North London, is a genius play by a 29-year-old, Moses Raine, directed by his not much older, equally skilled sister, Nina Raine. Donkey Heart is a Chekhovian drama set in contemporary Russia \u2013 a little comic, a lot wistful, with an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,36,1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-878","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blogroll-2","8":"category-elsewhere","9":"category-uncategorized","10":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/image0011.jpg?fit=109%2C129&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbv6zV-ea","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}