Theatre siege falls a bit flat
IN YOUR HANDS
New End Theatre
CHECHEN soldiers fasten the doors of the New End Theatre with explosives and a young “black widow” martyr, handgun cocked, threatens to blow the place to smithereens if anyone moves.
The New End Theatre transforms into the Dubrovka Theatre, Moscow, for its latest production In Your Hands.
It is based on the real events of October 2003, when Chechen rebels stormed the theatre taking its opera-loving audience hostage, demanding the release of political prisoners.
The script cracks open the old “one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter” chestnut.
But the real act of terrorism, as playwright Natalia Pelevine makes clear, was the Russian military’s decision to gas the 42 hostage takers and 150 members of the audience with a lethal dose of sleeping gas.
The audience is made up of imposters, with actors sitting among us. The lights stay on – it made me feel uneasy.
A kind-hearted American suffers a coronary. A material German diplomat is made to eat his own diamonds by one soldier. The characters each experience their own individual enlightenment as if to show how moments of extremism are, in some ways, necessary.
But at times the excruciating tedium of the wait (the siege lasted 52 hours) came across a little too exactly.
Solid performances from Clare Wilkie and Tracey Wilkinson pulled the night though. But the gun-toting soldiers’ were a little stiff, making the action scenes a little less than gripping. The theatre swap idea worked well but the dread of death, a good base for character and meaningful dialogue, was rarely felt.
Until Oct 15
0870 033 2733
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