BORIS GODUNOV
Barbican Theatre, London EC2
Opened 13 May, 2008
***
Cheek By Jowl’s annual seasons at the
Barbican have settled into the format of one English offering and one
Russian, the latter usually first begotten by the Chekhov International
Theatre Festival. Their 2008 stint opens with the return of a Russian
production first seen in Britain as part of LIFT 2001. On my last few
encounters I had begun to grow jaded at director Declan Donnellan’s
technique of illustrating the relationships between characters
spatially through physical proximity or distance, even putting figures
onstage when they are not “really” present. On this occasion, however,
I found myself responding far more positively to this dimension,
especially in the opening scenes of exposition in which Boris, the late
Tsar’s favourite and likely to attain the throne himself, prowls around
and even wrestles other courtiers as a physical illustration of his
forceful dominance. I suspect that this physical/spatial aspect proved
of value this time due to my unfamiliarity with Pushkin’s drama; on
those other occasions, perhaps familiarity had bred contempt.
It also proved helpful to be watching this largely modern-dress
production mere days after the RSC’s similarly themed Richard III. On the one hand, the
preponderance of boyars in grey suits suggests a jockeying for position
in the Politburo or, given the period during which the production was
created, the political flux of Russia in the 1980s and ’90s –
post-Brezhnev, pre-Putin – as an analogue of the “Time of Troubles” in
the early 17th century between the death of Ivan the Terrible and the
beginning of the Romanov dynasty. On the other, a comparison to the
Roundhouse Shakespeares brings out similarities with the England of the
Wars of the Roses: with a usurper (Boris) on the throne facing a
challenge from a fraudulent pretender (“False Dmitry I”, to distinguish
him from the two who followed him), the true lineage is about as
obscure as any Plantagenet wrangling over Edmund Mortimer.
Alexander Feklistov as Boris and Evgeny Mironov as the false Dmitry
lead a cast which repeatedly enlists the audience (seated in traverse)
as the Russian people who are to be persuaded or commanded in differing
directions; a strong liturgical element reinforces the sense that these
power wrangles have a formal public aspect and an impact on the entire
world in which the antagonists move.