Pasternak's Boots and Lucia

May 27, 2005 performance, reviewed by Pat Nichols

Pasternak's Boots, set in Moscow, Leningrad, and Oxford, covers a span of 20 years and addresses the difficulties artists faced during the Cold War.

Written and directed by Lenoxian Frances Benn Hall (more about Ms. Hall) and performed by the Yes/Noh Players, Pasternak's Boots is the fifteenth in a series of short plays Ms. Hall began writing in 1990.

The scene is spare: two chairs, a small table and dark walls. Isiah Berlin (Glenn Barrett), a political philosopher who fled Russia for Oxford, England, fulfills a mission of kindness in 1945 by delivering a pair of boots to Boris Pasternak (Bruce MacDonald), author of Dr. Zivago.

The boots coincidentally help propel Berlin to an unexpected visit with a poet whose work has been suppressed by the Stalin regime.

Pasternak recommends that Berlin visit Anna Akmatova (Diedre Bellinger), a leading Russian poet who has suffered the death of her husband and the exile of her son to Siberia.

Berlin comes front stage to explain how the Iron Curtain rang down on artists and prevented publication of any work taht didn't glorify the Stalinism.

As he and Akmatova speak she grows angry about the suppression of her poetry, noting that only safe poems will be allowed to see the light of day. They reach a sense of communion with each other, he understanding her pain and she grateful for his consolation.

As they talk about her poems she explains how talking about poetry mirrors breathing in importance for her. Berlin returns to England and they do not meet again for 20 years, when she receives an award at Oxford.

The play illuminates how politics affects individuals, shatters lives and how artists become pawns unable to have a voice, living under surveillance and separated from family.

As Berlin, Glenn Barrett brings a sympathetic note to his visit with Akmatova, listening as she relates her concerns. His demeanor, as the gentle philosopher who understands the immense weight of politics who also values the ability of a poet to make anguish so clear.

Bollinger, as Akmatova, displays both the strengths and pain of being a poet, at times visibly cheered by Berlin's sympathy, at other times voicing the sting of not hearing her work read and understood by those yearning do so.

Bruce McDonald as Pasternak acts as the bridge between Berlin and Akmatova even as he stoically suffers through the lack of acceptance and acclaim in his own country for his novel, Dr. Zivago.

Kathy Jo Grover, as Nadya Ivanovna, one of Akmatova's friends memorizes her poems to preserve them for future generations while acting as if she needs quilt materials in order to foil those sent to find reason to punish Akmatova.

The spare dark set offers a perfect background for the bleakness of the Cold War years. The costumes, done by the cast, reflect the elegance of the poet, the carefully suited philosopher, Pasternak's casual attire and Ivanovna's prim reflection of the style of the era.

Lucia

Lucia, a short play set in a psychiatric hospital, also by Frances Benn Hall, explores the effect of mental illness and it's origins. Kathy Jo Grover gives a striking performance of James Joyce's daughter and her ability to find herself in dance in many different places.

Her energetic and diverse dance, choreographed by D.J. McDonald, helps make the intensity of her illness real.