Two moments of theatrical wonder:
The protagonist, Janina, encounters wild creatures. These creatures are portrayed by members of the ensemble. There’s no silly adornment to suggest their animal nature. The performers simply stand motionless, watchful, in a dignified silence.
At another point in the story, Janina dresses for a costume ball. She takes on the mask of an animal. While in this costume, she does not speak.
This is the emotional heart of director Eamon Flack’s inspiring adaptation of Olga Tokarczuk’s novel – the essential dignity of our silent cousins.
Set in modern day Poland, the story is a whodunnit, with the characters attempting to determine who is responsible for a series of murders. All the slain are hunters, and Janina asserts that it’s the animals seeking retribution. So, in addition to the whodunnit element, the piece also operates as a youdunnit, a gentle and forever entertaining invitation to consider our own treatment of animals.
The glory of this production is the characterisation and the theatricality.
Pamela Rabe plays Janina, and as both narrator and protagonist through three hours of stage-time, it’s a monster role of deep humanity. Bewildered by other people and outraged at their cruelty, Rabe’s Janina is a superb mix of humour and heart. Janina complains she is dismissed as a batty old woman, and thrillingly the script and the performance leave open whether her complaint is justified.
Staging is simple, but extraordinarily beautiful. There’s a revolve, a few small portable pieces evoking setting, and the trademark Belvoir style of rough magic: example, a snow storm is thrown from a bag held by an actor, a mini-leaf blower creates the flurry.
The work’s purpose is serious – the challenging of a complacent cruelty we tell ourselves is just plain reality. But the entire cast invest in a mischief that makes possible belief in change, a change our smaller natures would dismiss as miraculous.
Paul Gilchrist
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead from the novel by Olga Tokarczuk
adapted by Eamon Flack
at Belvoir until May 10
Image by Brett Boardman
Theatre Red 