War and Pace

Friday evening, I was at Crow's Theatre for the musical Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812. This adaptation of a Tony-winning Broadway show has been breaking records. While local productions usually has a 3-4 week run, Natasha's has been extended several times and was now into its 3rd month. So I was able to snag a ticket even if 4 of the cast members (including veteran Louise Pitre) recently left the show due to other commitments.

Strangely enough my first (and only) show at this east-end Theatre was also set in Russia. But unlike that show's stark setting, this one was richly decorated evoking opera houses and aristocratic residences in Moscow. The audience was much closer, sitting up in the balcony, and also at barstools and small tables on both sides of the stage. This cabaret set-up allowed the characters to interact with the crowd throughout the night.

The musical was based on a 70-page excerpt from Tolstoy's magnum opus concentrating on Countess Natasha's (Hailey Gillis) infatuation with cad Anatole (George Krissa) while bethrothed to Prince Andrei. Meanwhile, Andrei's brother-in-law Count Pierre (Evan Buliung) was lamenting his wasted life: drunk, growing ever fatter, and with an unfaithful wife. There were enough characters that the show opened with a song to introduce them all to the audience (with a winking exhortation to read the show notes).

The occasional 4th wall breaking and anachronisms were used to inject humour into the musical: an EDM-esque song when the nobles went to a "club to party", Dolokhov's (Tyler Pearse) frat bros gestures, Hélène's (Divine Brown) booty call number about Natasha and Anatole. Unlike pastiche or "greatest hits" pop musicals, The Great Comet's songs were more sing-through musical theatre à la Les Miz but with a sonic palette that included dance and indie rock. But having the characters also sing Tolstoy's detailed prose about each other and often themselves took some getting used to. It was as if they were referring to themselves in the 3rd person; but in popular culture illeism in English is usually used as a gag.

There were hints of Russian folk song influence throughout the night but most notably in the barn-burner Balaga, when the troika driver and the cast was getting ready for Natasha's elopement in the 2nd act. The latter was also the stronger half as it concentrated on that event and its fall-out. The 1st act seemed too frenetic trying to cram numerous plot lines into an hour.

I overheard a number of Russian speakers inside the venue and at the bar. I wondered how they felt about the show. I admit I did not realized the musical was based on Tolstoy (not much of a reader of Russian literature). So beside the Eastern European names, a story of upper-class propriety and venality seemed to me like it could have been Bridgerton or any other period piece about societal scandals.