The Stage

The Kreutzer Sonata

Published Wednesday 11 November 2009 at 17:20 by Jason Best

Leo Tolstoy’s perplexing novella The Kreutzer Sonata has puzzled and divided readers ever since it first appeared in 1889, but whether it is misogynist or utopian, immoral or idealistic, Tolstoy’s tale of a railway passenger who confesses his wife’s murder to his fellow travellers has an irresistible narrative power. And in the hands of adaptor Nancy Harris, director Natalie Abrahami and actor Hilton McRae, it proves every bit as compelling on stage as on the page.

Hilton McRae (Pozdynyshev) in The Kreutzer Sonata at the Gate Theatre Photo: Tristram Kenton

Speaking at first in a tone of worldly suavity, McRae’s well-heeled Russian gentleman, Pozdynyshev, gradually reveals more and more of his character. As his tale unfolds, polite urbanity gives way to sexual disgust and raging jealousy. What finally unhinges Pozdynyshev is his conviction that his piano-playing wife is having an affair with her professional violinist partner, their passions inflamed by Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata.

In an adroit piece of staging, we see the adulterous lovers of Pozdynyshev’s imagination lit up behind a gauzy scrim and hear their fervent music-making. Played by Sophie Scott and Tobias Beer, the pair appear in brief tableaux that tellingly illustrate Pozdynyshev’s lurid narrative and show how Beethoven’s music gnaws at his mind. The teasing flashes make McRae’s recitation all the more gripping.

It’s Tolstoy’s story-telling skill, not his moralising, that holds us spellbound. Fortunately, Harris has pared away most of Tolstoy’s didacticism from her adaptation, punctuating the tale instead with a series of sharp aphorisms that are almost as piercing as the blade with which Pozdynyshev stabs his wife.