The Mandate

Synopsis

The revolution turns the Guliachins' world upside down. First they must track down members of the working class to pose as relatives. And there's 'Copenhagen Twilight' to replace with a portrait of Karl Marx. But in a bizarre case of mistaken identity, the cook is confused for the Grand Duchess Anastasia or a call girl, depending on whether she is in our out of her dress. Banned for decades in the USSR, this uproarious new version of Nikolai Erdman's lost comic masterpiece exposes a society riddled with hypocrisy and confusion.

Our Review:

27 October 2004

Russian dramatist Nikolai Erdman wrote two full-length plays: The Suicide, which is widely performed and considered his best, and The Mandate. He started a third, The Hypnotist, but left it unfinished and turned his hand to screenplays instead.

It’s a pity because the existing two are fantastic plays, with all the makings of classics - rooted in their own time (the early 20th century, a period of massive upheaval in Russia) and yet still holding universal resonance. This new English version of The Mandate has been translated by director Declan Donnellan.

In it, we meet Pavel, his mother and sister, a bourgeois family whose lives are in disarray thanks to the revolution. They have been forced out of their passive, cosy lives as the ‘unconscious social element’ and made to share their home with lodgers. Pavel is persuaded to become a communist – his sister’s engagement to a wealthy family hangs on the condition th...

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Latest User Review

81.134.187.246) - 4 January 2005:

It's great to see Declan Donnelan back at the NT. It's great to see a classic in the Cottesloe again. It's great to see a cast of 20 - a rare treat these days. It's a fascinating play and hard to believe such satire could be put on just 7 years after the Russian revolution. Most critics have a downer on the mannered, highly stylised and farcical production style. OK, so it can be a bit wearing, but it is often funny and how else do you make the play work in 2004? A welcome addition to the NT's repertoire....

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