Review: Our Great Tchaikovsky (The Other Palace)
If ideally it takes a virtuoso to portray another virtuoso, then in that respect at least Our Great Tchaikovsky is in very safe hands. For this solo bio-play is performed by the astoundingly talented American actor-musician Hershey Felder, best known on these shores for his 2004 West End and Broadway hit George Gershwin Alone.
Tchaikovsky follows a similar format. Billed as 'a play with music', it is really an engaging fusion of lecture and concert recital. Felder addressing the audience both as himself and Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – deploying a flawless, at least to these ears, Russian accent. If at first it promises to be a little dry and even dull, a bit of concentration pays off rich dividends.
Felder is a magnetic stage presence, drawing the audience in, landing comic lines with aplomb, and convincingly conveying the heartbreak and loneliness of the musical genius tormented by his own sexuality. Furthermore, he is a world-class pianist in his own right and so the extended instrumental passages are sheer magic. He also shows off a very fine singing voice at certain points, as apparently being sensationally good at two disciplines just isn't enough; would it be too flippant to enquire what his dancing is like?
Seriously though, it is a rare privilege to see such extraordinary talent live, and for that reason alone Our Great Tchaikovsky would be well worth seeing. However Trevor Hay's production is handsomely mounted, with Christopher Ash's gorgeous lighting and projections vividly conjuring up the heady, opulent atmosphere of 19th century Russia and beyond.
If the written text is unremarkable in itself, it draws thought-provoking parallels between attitudes to homosexuality in Tchaikovsky's own lifetime and the appalling treatment of gay people in present-day Russia, pointing out the grim irony in the use of the "Nutcracker Suite" in the opening ceremony of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, in a place and time when its creator would have been subject to torture and imprisonment.
If the piece as written is a little inert, dramatically speaking, the music itself – swooning, melancholic, thrilling – ultimately proves drama enough, and there is a moment of pure theatre at the end when Felder seems to morph into Tchaikovsky before our very eyes.
The composer's life story is also hugely interesting; blackmail attempts, his longstanding patronage by a wealthy benefactress who he never actually met, his deep infatuation with his gay nephew, and perhaps most fascinating of all, his unexplained death at the age of 53 while in apparently good health. Felder gives us a number of the possible explanations and conspiracy theories for this but tantalisingly never offers his take on it.
All in all, this may be too downbeat for some tastes, but for others it will prove a rewarding and gently flamboyant look at genius in action, and by genius I mean Hershey Felder as much as Tchaikovsky himself. A very special piece of theatre.
Our Great Tchaikovsky runs at The Other Palace until 22 October.
