Skilfully adapted from Tolstoy’s 1889 novella by Nancy Harris, this almost perfect chamber piece is a haunting and disturbing account of one man’s fatal jealousy.
At first suave and almost relaxed, Hilton McRae’s middle-aged Pozdynyshev sits alone in the carriage of a moving train carriage (atmospherically designed by Chloe Lamford) isolated from his unseen fellow passengers as they make their way to a concert.
Almost immediately he admits to an antipathy to music, and it soon becomes apparent that, though he claims that he loved his wife, a deep-rooted misogyny also pervades his mind set.
As his confession unfolds, he proves to be a fascinating but increasingly unsympathetic being. Just released from prison, he relishes the opportunity this journey gives him to recount first his unsavoury premarital peccadilloes as a young man about town, then his growing distrust of his piano-playing wife as she practiced and performed an intense Beethoven duet with a violinist acquaintance.
McRae gives a memorably compelling performance, luring the audience into his confidence as his suspicions overpower him, and the dreamlike glimpses of the two musicians (ethereal figures briefly illuminated as they play) enhance the power of Natalie Abrahami’s production, turning what is virtually a monologue into a haunting study of one man’s twisted psyche.
Gate, Pembridge Road W11 3HQ (020 7229 0706). Until December 19 (£16)
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