Bliss review – relentlessly grim drama haunted by the ghosts of war
This is a glum, plodding production depicting a grim, hard-hearted world. There is little happiness our young couple can eke out in 1920s Russia, when all around them is a wealth of pain, famine and the ghosts of war.
Fraser Grace has developed Bliss from a 1939 short story by Andrey Platonov, a writer dismissed by Stalin for his harsh depiction of Russia. Lyuba (Bess Roche) is a medical student, bright with expectation. Nikita (Jesse Rutherford) has just returned from war, carrying what he has seen in his tortured eyes and shaking hands. Cloaked in grey, the characters are both hungry and lonely; each gravitates towards the other.
The supporting actors float around them, foul-mouthed fathers and consumption-riddled friends. Jeremy Killick gets a rough deal as an ethereal homeless man haunting Nikita, spending most of his time curled up silently in a corner. Relentlessly stern, it is clear that the production is searching for a way to convey the weight of war, how conflict stays with you beyond anyone else’s comprehension. The outcome is a long, dour evening.
The set, designed by director Paul Bourne, is made up of wooden pallets, arranged carefully in sedate scene transitions into a carpentry workshop, a bed and stepping stones by a river. Everything is done with a steady precision like that needed to slot one piece of wood into another, but it creates an interminable slowness, losing any tension built from the scene before.
The cast deliver intense performances, with Rutherford in particular radiating torment in the wildly tangential second half, while Roche offers the play’s only glimpse of hope. But the dialogue direly lacks subtext, with little room for the actors to build around. The production conjures a country full of hardships but this specific tale might work better on the page.
Bliss is at the Finborough, London, until 11 June.
