Cold War @ Almeida Theatre, London
My first exposure to great Polish cultural form, this is a play/musical based on the film by Paweł Pawlikowski. (Which I’ve never watched, yet). Great staging, singing, dancing and epic historical sweep, but I’m not sure about the central characters. I think it’s meant to have an epic feel to it like Doctor Zhivago as characters are caught up and buffeted by political events, trying to keep their love and relationship alive. It was hard to believe in the romance as the protagonists were obsessive and destructive to others around them. One of them, Wiktor, was particularly annoying as he didn’t seem to have anything to him, wafting disastrously through life.
Directed by Rupert Goold, with music by Elvis Costello and a book by Conor McPherson, the play/musical felt like an encounter with stagey royalty. Wiktor (Luke Thallon) is a pianist who hasn’t quite made it — yet, in a happy relationship with Irena (Alex Young) and about to wow the world with a touring traditional Polish folk songs, dance and culture spectacular. Or atleast the Eastern Bloc Communist Russian dominated world.
In their search for Polish cultural talent, Wiktor and Irena encounter the intense and talented Zula (Anya Chalotra). From a troubled background, Zula makes her own way forward, getting the attention of both Kaczmarek (Elliot Levey) and Wiktor. When Kaczmarek suggests less traditional folk songs and more ‘patriotic bombast’ about Stalin and tractors, Wiktor easily capitulates, Irena leaves in disgust at the misuse of culture — and therfore Wiktor. Similarly, Wiktor falls into an affair with Zula.
They get to travel — there is no Berlin Wall yet, defection is as easy as a careful walk in the right direction. Wiktor and Zula plan to defect together, only Kaczmarek somehow corners Zula as she’s about to leave, convinces her to stay for the sake of the touring show and her own fame, and to let Wiktor go. Wiktor is ‘allowed’ to leave and ends up in Paris, not quite making it.
Somehow, by marrying an Italian, Zula is strategically allowed to travel and finds Wiktor in Paris again. They form a musical duo — pushing out his existing girlfriend and her song — and yet they can never be happy together or apart, or free. Even in the new freedom of Paris there doesn’t seem to be any…true freedom. Sinking in misery, Zula ends up married with a baby with Kaczmarek; while Wiktor self-destructs, voluntarily returning to Poland, being imprisoned and tortured, losing the use of a hand and therefore his musical abilities. In his degradation, Zula still turns up to support him — and post-prison, Zula and Wiktor decide that they can only be happy together — dead. It’s a horrible, tragic ending — and yet it’s hard to feel connected to two such self-absorbed and calamity-causing people. Apart collaborating with a fellow auditionee at the beginning, Zula seemed to torch everyone around her, whilst Wiktor seemed apathetic, apparently choosing not to make decisions at every moment. The closest he gets to showing any kind of self-determination is in his sinking into destructive drinking misery in Paris and then his self-inflicted punishment in his return to Poland and prison. (Which is a terrible series of choices to make).
The closest I came to feeling for Wiktor was when he started to face up to the truth about himself and his behaviour towards the end of the play/musical, and his culpability and guilt. The Nazi invasion is very close to surface in this play/musical — Wiktor it turns out failed to support his Jewish piano teacher when she was in hiding, basically leaving her to starve and ended up playing to entertain the controlling Nazi regime. Maybe he was more willing and cordial to the Nazi regime than appears — it’s unclear. Whilst he’s presented as heroic, dynamic and talented at the beginning of the production, more and more his murky past starts to leak out, and those in authority use this against him at various points. Part of the problem is that Wiktor seems to drift into each part of his life aimlessly, rootlessly, wasting what he has. Even Zula pushes their affair into being. They keep saying that they love each other passionately — but it’s hard to believe this when this would require effort from Wiktor to actually do something! Maybe this is the point.
Underneath all of this is a bigger discussion about what freedom looks like and is.
Is this a play or a musical? At points it’s been branded as a musical, although the experience was more of a play with music. The folk songs, styles and dancing are beautifully created, even the costumes. Moreover the historic sweep is beautifully rendered as we move into 1950’s bohemian Paris and the eye-popping 1960’s.
But overall terribly sad as Zula has had a really hard life before achieving fame as a Soviet sponsored cultural phenomenon and a Parisian chanteuse. Seemingly she and Wiktor can’t be happy anywhere, with or without each other. The performances were really strong, with a standout ensemble — but the characters!
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