Musical theatre is not usually my thing but given the consistently high standard of everything at Crow’s theatre in the last couple of years I was prepared to take a punt on Dave Malloy’s Pierre, Natasha and the Great Comet of 1812 despite knowing full well it was a Broadway musical.  The bottom line is I found it a very odd experience.  There was plenty to like and I kind of get why people like shows like it but It’s still really not my thing but I don’t think I’m the target audience.

It opens with an extremely energetic song and dance number which explains that War and Peace is complicated because everyone has nine different names but you don’t need to worry about that and, in case you are worried about the idea, it isn’t an opera either.  Paraphrasing, “This isn’t for grumpy old opera critics who have read War and Peace three times”.

And it’s not really.  It’s a series of spectacular and energetic song and dance numbers linked together by a rather thin plot built out of a single incident in the novel.  Those big numbers are real crowd pleasers though and there are plenty of them, from ball room scenes to a sort of wild celebration of Anatole’s troika driver and more.  The music is a high energy electropop.  The costumes, sets and lighting are really good and the cast, who are all great movers and very decent singers, throw themselves into it with abandon.  Many members of the cast double up as instrumentalists and are fully integrated into the action.  On occasions actors even kidnap members of the audience to general hilarity.  In a somewhat different musical and dramatic context I would have loved all that.  The trouble, though, is the bits in between…

Lets take the plot first.  There are essentially two loosely linked elements.  There’s Anatole Kuragin’s attempted seduction of/elopement with Natasha Rostova and there’s Pierre Bezukhov’s self loathing and angst.  The problem is lack of context.  So characters like the Bolkonskys become caricatures.  Andrei lurks menacingly in the background, foregrounding only to be bitter about Natasha for about two minutes.  The old prince is portrayed as a doddery old fool who accosts young ladies in his underwear.  Maria is a cardboard cut out.  There’s no character development.  Bezukhov is a disillusioned drunk.  Kuragin is a self regarding thoughtless rake (fair enough!).  Natasha is a silly, naive girl.  Shorn of what happens after Andrei is badly wounded at Borodino and Bezukhov has had his epiphany in the prison camp, the cursory foreshadowing of a relationship between Pierre and Natasha makes little sense.

Maybe the thinness of the plot wouldn’t have mattered if it hadn’t been presented in such a weird manner.  The dramatic technique is one I’ve not seen before.  Basically the characters sing about what another character is actually doing or what they themselves are doing.  The latter is sometimes in the first person and sometimes, rather oddly, in the third person.  So, for example, there’s a scene where Pierre is pacing up and down singing “Bezukhov paces up and down silently”.  In general, the book, big numbers aside, sounds clumsy and prosaic.  Musically too this narrative is, to my ears, odd.  It’s through sung but it has none of the energy of the big numbers.  It’s a sort of meandering line a bit reminiscent of the sort of modern American opera that sounds like people singing over a movie sound track except that here it’s a sort of electropop recitativo secco.  There’s (mainly) piano accompaniment but of a very minimal and repetitive form.

I can’t knock the performances though.  Evan Buliung is very convincing as a shambling, deeply unhappy Bezukhov.  Hailey Gillis, as Natasha, fully conveys the sense of Natasha as very young and very naive.  George Krissa, as Anatole, preens and primps and coopts the audience into his selfish worldview with a kind of sly insouciance.  Divine Brown as Hélène Bezukhova makes the most of her big R&B like number, belting it out in fine style.  Director Chris Abrahams makes skilful use of a space that really feels a bit too small for all the shenanigans.

So, if you are a fan of modern Broadway musicals don’t let my persnickety reservations put you off going.  You will likely love it as much as last night’s audience seemed to. Pierre, Natasha and the Great Comet of 1812 continues at Crow’s Theatre until January 28th.

Photo credits: Dahlia Katz