Two centuries after Nikolai Gogol’s birth and two years after Fail Better first adapted his classic short story, this account of mental decline has lost no impact in the interim.
Along with Gecko’s acclaimed The Overcoat, this comes as one of two Gogol works appearing at this year’s Fringe. Here, it finds a remarkably punchy approach in the format of one character, one set and one plot line. The action centres on Axenty Ivanovich, a pencil pusher in the Russian civil service who longs for significance, the approval of his seniors and the affections of an unattainable woman. Sequestered in his bedroom, his struggle with his own powerlessness pushes him into insanity, and what begins as a lucid view of solitude and discontent accelerates into a blur of fantasy, pain and confusion.
Christopher Tester’s performance conveys the transition brilliantly and, despite countless peaks of torment and lunacy, he is at his most compelling in those more ambiguous scenes in which Axelty seems in danger of recognising his own delusions. The staging is strikingly inventive, with Gogol’s nineteenth-century setting reimagined with a stark 1930s aesthetic. The room, initially sterile and pristine, becomes increasingly chaotic before ending up as disheveled and bare as Axelty’s mind. An anglepoise lamp is exploited to surprisingly powerful effect and floods of light transform a window into both theatre and boudoir, while a garbled calendar becomes a wonderfully simple representation of a skewed timescale.
While the full potential of the story isn’t quite fully realised—for example, Gogol’s satirical humour is sometimes eclipsed by tragedy—this is a truly gripping piece of theatre.
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