THEATRE REVIEW:
THE KREUTZER SONATA
17 JUL/11

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

TORONTO -- If your tastes are purely musical, you’ll no doubt recognize the Kreutzer Sonata as a composition by Beethoven — a work also known as Violin Sonata No. 9, written as its second title implies for the violin and for an accompanying piano. If your tastes run to things more literary, then you’ll recognize the Kreutzer Sonata as an obscure novella authored by the Russian literary lion, Leo Tolstoy.


But if your tastes run more to theatre on a local level, chances are you’ll recognize it as a stage adaptation of Tolstoy’s work, created, directed and performed by Ted Dykstra, initially as one half of a double bill from The Art of Time Ensemble, performed in tandem with James Kudelka’s ballet, 15 Heterosexual Duets, set to the Beethoven composition.


Now, Dykstra is reprising his work, sans balletic accompaniment, presenting his portion of the Art of Time program under the aegis of Soulpepper as part of the summer season at the Young Centre, where the Kreutzer Sonata opened last week.

Unlike the music that inspired it, Dykstra’s take on the tale is a work for one character — a Russian aristocrat named Uri, who spends almost the entire hour of the show slouched in an oversized wing chair that shares the stage with a carpet and a side-table often intensely lit by set and costume designer Lorenzo Savoini.


Uri, it seems, clearly subscribes to the strange religious and sexual theories that led Tolstoy to embrace chastity as the only sure-fire ticket to immortality. Uri, however, has married, and — after his wife Sonja has given birth to a couple of children — he’s withdrawn quite happily from the marriage bed. Sonja, for her part, seems to thrive under his regime of chastity as well, and everything is going swimmingly until Nikolai, a childhood acquaintance of Uri’s, re-enters his life, having returned from Paris for a visit.


Not surprisingly, the puritanical Uri has given up the music he studied in his youth, but Nikolai has continued to pursue it, and is now quite an accomplished pianist. Of course, he and Sonja, who dabbles in violin, are soon playing duets — a pastime that fills the sexually austere Uri with rage and jealousy. And when they team up to perform the Kreutzer Sonata they strike a dangerous chord or two.


As Uri, Dykstra gives a compelling performance, drawing us slowly and carefully into madness and making it, on occasion, appear almost reasonable, despite mood swings as unpredictable and fierce as August weather. Although perhaps not what Tolstoy intended, Dykstra creates a cautionary tale on the abuse of chastity.


But for all the considerable muscle of his performance, his adaptation remains largely a radio play — a stage work that would play as well for a blindfolded audience as a sighted one, one suspects. The Kreutzer Sonata started out as a work for two artists — and perhaps old Beethoven knew best.