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theatre

The White Guard

National Theatre, London, 15 March - 15 June 2010

cast list
Anthony Calf, Pip Carter, Paul Higgins, Conleth Hill , Justine Mitchell, Graham Butler, Peter Campion, Gunnar Cauthery, Hannah Croft, Marcus Cunningham, Paul Dodds, Kevin Doyle, Nick Fletcher, Daniel Flynn, Keiran Flynn, Michael Grady-Hall, Mark Healy, Richard Henders, Nick Julian, Dermot Kerrigan, Barry McCarthy, Stuart Martin, Daniel Millar

directed by
Howard Davies

Mikhail Bulgakov’s semi-autobiographical account of the doomed fate of the pro-Tsarist forces in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War in 1918-19 makes stirring theatre.

The White Guard sympathetically follows the misfortunes of the liberal-traditionalist Turbin family as the country is torn asunder following the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917.

After Russia has pulled out of the Great War, the Germans have taken over Kiev, but with their defeat to the Allies they and their puppet government led by The Hetman pull out, leaving power in the hands of Petlyura’s Ukrainian nationalists, who in turn are ousted by the Bolsheviks’ Red Army.

This work’s genesis is almost as complicated as the historical background. Originally an unproduced play called The Turbin Brothers, which Bulgakov destroyed, he then reworked the material as the novel The White Guardbefore adapting it to be staged as The Days of the Turbins by the Moscow Art Theatre in 1926. This admirably coherent version by Andrew Upton removes some of the enforced Bolshevik censorship so that there is an elegiac mood for the end of a way of life and a feeling of deep uncertainty about the Communist future.

Upton also emphasizes the surreal comedy of the work so that there is a strong sense of absurdity and chaos with different factions struggling for power and people swapping sides as ‘everything seems to be falling apart’. After The Hetman has escaped disguised as a wounded German soldier on a stretcher and his aides have scarpered, the palace is left in the hands of a footman. A Cossack peasant going to hospital is first arrested for desertion, then shot because his frostbitten feet will make him useless as a soldier, while a cobbler is first suspected of carrying a bomb in his basket, then his boots are requisitioned for the Nationalist army.

The White Guard seem ridiculously over-concerned with honour and loyalty to a lost cause, and fall out amongst themselves over whether to fight on or disband. And in the Turbin home itself, where various people turn up for vodka-fuelled singalongs, the men argue about politics while they compete for the attentions of the mistress of the house.

This is the third Russian drama Howard Davies has directed, following in the footsteps of Philistines and Burnt by the Sun. Like those, this terrific production seamlessly fuses the personal with the political, with individual destinies tied to public events, showing Russian passion in all its exhilaration and despair. Bunny Christie’s stunning design moves the action from the Turbins’ apartment to lofty palace, and from cramped field headquarters to requisitioned school hall, while Christopher Shutt’s explosive soundtrack adds much to the military scenes.

The cast of 27 fill the stage with dynamic movement. Daniel Flynn and Richard Henders play the protective elder and gentle younger Turbin brothers, respectively, with Justine Mitchell as their charmingly hospitable sister as the emotional heart of the play and peacemaker amongst the men.

Kevin Doyle is the buffoonish war minister husband who deserts her and his country, and Pip Carter the Turbins’ amusingly naïve student-poet cousin. Anthony Calf is the cowardly Hetman whose barking commands quickly turn to whimpering submission, while as his playboy chameleon aide de camp, Conleth Hill has already acquired a long coat representing 'essence of prole' as we hear off-stage the Reds’ victory salute.

- Neil Dowden