Without a Dowry

Photo: Jiri Sediak

= Without a Dowry is an impressive show, a joint project of the company of the School of Dramatic Art and producer Leonid Roberman (Moscow). The script is an adaptation of the 1878 play by Alexander Ostrovsky, adapted by Dmitrij Krymov, who also directs. It concerns a young woman who, having lost her playboy lover, prepares to marry a sincere but luckless young man.

The acting is meticulous, each actor focussing on the character’s eccentricity. Indeed, some characters are grotesques. In the central role, Marija Smolnikova ably presents a cold, dislikable woman. She reads to her betrothed a list of demands (including limits on sex) as if their scheduled marriage were a business deal made at a street stall.

The show is presented on a large stage. The staging is complex and impressive, using a huge video screen on the back wall to show the events on the other side (the interesting set is by Anna Kostrikova). The characters know they’re watching a video, their backs to us. Occasionally the characters address us; one of them asks if he’s blocking our view. Ostrovsky couldn’t have written these asides, and I believe the script has otherwise been augmented as well. The production uses expressionist techniques, surrealist techniques, Brechtian techniques, technology, songs, et al… Mr. Krymov tells us everything twice, an he uses everything at his disposal.

And therein lies the problem. When Strindberg taught us that a play can do whatever it wants, this prodigal spending of stage capital is not what he had in mind. Mr. Krymov is like a child who can’t decide which toy to play with first, so he spreads them all out on the floor and plays with each for five minutes. The sheer excess of stage techniques in this production of Without a Dowry buries the tender story of a young woman torn between two suitors. In fact, the show’s most effective moment is when the young groom-to-be rehearses his wedding speech in a simple, straightforward monologue, not knowing his fiancée has betrayed him.

review
Steve Capra
September 2019
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