In his director’s note to the Oxford School of Drama’s latest production, Anna Karenina, Robin Belfield asks “How does one distil over 800 pages of rich descriptive language into two hours of exciting theatre?” Such is the challenge faced in bringing Tolstoy’s classic to the stage of the indie Pegasus Theatre in Cowley.
The novel follows the sad story of a young Russian socialite who begins an extramarital affair with the handsome Count Vronsky. Multiple actors played the main parts – six Annas and five Levins. This was slightly confusing but also highly effective in conveying multi-faceted personalities and conflicting emotions.
One of the difficulties in transporting Anna from page to stage is the psychological dimension which the 2012 film adaptation attempts to convey through Keira Knightley’s pout alone. This aspect of the novel was maintained with the simple but ingenious use of a sheer curtain. During one of Levin’s introspective soliloquys he stands in front of the curtain, while Anna quite literally strolls through his mind behind it.
The costumes were elegant, but not overdone. The set, too, was minimalistic. The odd spade, suitcase or chaise longue, carried on and off stage by peasant-like figures in brown capes. Richard Lemming was superb as Anna’s husband, a mildly repellent civil servant who uses words like ‘propitious’ and ‘irksome’ in normal conversation and tries to initiate sex with the explanation that he’s showered and washed his hair.
With so many actors playing the same roles, variations of talent became obvious. I also objected to the bizarrely anachronistic blowjob simulation. Apart from that, it was a laudable effort in staging a very complicated novel.
