Once more – as with The Tigers of Wrath last year – Dean Parker has contained an epic sweep of socio-political history within an ingeniously crafted play that capitalises on the fact that the political is personal and the personal is political. 

What with the Court Theatre premiere being cut short by the February 2011 earthquake and the Auckland Theatre Company opening being delayed by a fire in the Maidment Theatre (as it relocated to the Aotea Centre’s NZI Room), this Circa Season, dynamically directed by Susan Wilson, has been highly anticipated with a tinge of trepidation. The result is an unalloyed triumph.

Set in 1947, mostly within the New Zealand Legation in the USSR’s capital city, Midnight in Moscow pinpoints the time when the defeat of Hitler and Fascism and the joys of post-war industrialisation came up against a slowly growing awareness that the ideals of Communism were being corrupted by Josef Stalin; that far from being opposites, Hitler and Stalin have an awful lot in common. (The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, was not formed until 1949, to counter the Stalin-led spread of Communism in Europe.) 

It’s fair to say that Midnight in Moscow assumes its audience knows what will follow and will see this drama in that context; that the more we know about Stalinism, Boris Pasternak and pro-Soviet spies (Burgess, McLean and Philby), not to mention our own Paddy Costello, before we see the play (plus Colin Moyle, regarding other matters closer to home), the more we’ll tune into its subtext. On the other hand, we may leave it inspired to find out more – and in this age of internet-sourced information, there’s no excuse not to.

But is the history what this play is really about, or is Parker’s witty and perceptive conflation of fact and fiction the means by which we get to see how individuals create history, be they idealistic, fallible, unimpeachable or corrupt? The answer is yes to both: the particular is universal; the universal is particularised and personalised. Hence this play may well prove to be a classic.  

Post-war Russia is also a brilliant prism through which to pass the multi-facetted New Zealand character. A lot of the comedy – of which Anton Chekhov would be proud – comes from that.

Book-ending the play as its story-teller, 30-plus years after the events, is the urbane, personable (and fictional) diplomat Kit Lovell-Smith, who himself is multi-facetted. Despite his empathising with Claudius (Hamlet’s uncle-step father) and quoting E M Forster – “If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country” – Gavin Rutherford ensures we understand why he is so lovable to so many. A beautifully pitched performance. 

Queen-pin of the Legation is the dipsomaniacal yet politically extremely astute June Temm (inspired by the first woman to head an overseas New Zealand diplomatic post, Jean McKenzie, whose legendary generosity as a host of parties was gained in Paris). Carmel McGlone also takes us on a multi-level ride as she juggles June’s roles as boss-woman, aunt in loco parentis, friend, confidante and unrequited lover. The power of her warnings about bugs and her blurted denunciation of Communism are compellingly counterpointed by her uncertainties and vulnerabilities. There are times when we tune right into her constantly assessing and evaluating mind, perceiving her unspoken thoughts.  

June’s niece, Madeline Corless, is a brilliantly conceived character. Her passion is hydro electricity and dam-building, and she has a scholarship to study it at “the Institute” via the New Zealand Soviet Friendship Society. Her rhapsodic paean to Arapuni is but one of the many gloriously poetic passages in Parker’s text. Chelsea Bognuda delights in contrasting Madeline’s industrial obsession with her interest in fashion and falling in love … Delicious.  

There is a distinctly Chekhovian tone to the Legation’s archivist, Sophie Toomey, in her determination to see the best in everyone and everything (an echo of Irina from The Three Sisters, perhaps). As embodied by Jessica Robinson, her innocent idealism is a welcome contrast to the more cynical views of Kit and June, even though we have cause to bleed for her lack of awareness.

A seemingly bizarre and out-of-context rendition of ‘Three Little Maids From School’ from The Mikado, yet totally appropriate as NZ’s culturally bereft contribution to a function in honour of E M Forster – and splendidly rendered by McGlone, Robinson and Bognuda – turns out to be another dramaturgical coup from Parker, when we learn why they are banned at the last minute from doing it. This offers but one of many clues to the growing awareness of Stalin’s true nature (and puts paid to the odd assertion, in the NZ Herald’s review of the ATC production, that the play puts undue emphasis “on a rehash of the standard left-wing apologetics for Stalinist totalitarianism” (see the Comments thread this provoked).

Of course it is essential we understand why so many apparently intelligent and well-educated people (e.g. ‘The Cambridge Five’) became pro-Soviet spies and double-agents. This role falls to Hugh Toomey, played with compelling conviction by Jon Pheloung (who played Kit Lovell in the ill-fated Court Theatre premiere). Introduced in the play as the doting husband of Sophie, his true colours at personal, political and literary levels are exposed on his visits to Boris Pasternak’s dacha, by virtue of his being asked to translate the revered poet’s first and yet-to-be completed novel Doctor Zhivago into English.

Hugh Toomey’s denunciation of the novel as “a lie” makes it clear why it was suppressed in Soviet Russia (and first published in Italy in 1957 before achieving fame as a loosely-adapted film in 1965), as does his view of the Revolution as liberating Tsarist Russia from waste, slavery and greed. Pasternak’s rebuttal – “man was born to live, not prepare for the future!” and the artist’s only quest must be for the Truth – will resonate with many of any age.

Stephen Papps at last gets to play a full season of the role he originated in Christchurch, capturing beautifully the essence of the truth-seeking, ‘above party politics’ artist, who nevertheless waits for a call from Stalin to come and discuss the meaning of life and meanwhile takes great pride in growing cucumbers.  

More conscious of what is happening around them is his lover, Olga Ivinskaya, played with intense inner-feeling by Miranda Manasiadis. Her embodiment of ‘living in the sensuous moment’ while fearing the future offers a piquant distillation of the dichotomy of human life.

Lest my summaries suggest this play is turgidly dramatic, let me hasten to say it is anything but. Framed somewhat as a spy thriller – in that June is made aware early on that someone is leaking secret files to the Russians and so, despite feeling we know upfront, we keep an eye out for clues as to who else it might be – the tensions arising from that and the inter-personal dynamics generate comedy throughout.

The Chekhovian tones already mentioned are wilfully blended with the odd Wildean epigram and Noel Coward-esque eloquence, ingeniously interpolated musical items and a uniquely Kiwi perspective on world affairs to produce a richly textured two-and-a-half hours of riveting entertainment.

John Hodgkin’s stepped set with hanging flags and period furniture serves the action well, as does Marcus McShane’s lighting design – although the hazer-smoke kept leaking through the window and the visible scaffolding pipes beyond were something of a distraction on opening night.

Gillie Coxill’s costume designs are delightfully appropriate, supporting the story without intruding on it and giving a strong sense of the era.

Director Susan Wilson has made a complex task look effortless and our enjoyment is all the more assured for that. As a superbly crafted play and production, Midnight In Moscow is not to be missed.

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Many contemporary New Zealand plays are Fast Food theatre: they’re over in about an hour, have small casts for small stages, and are based mostly around relationships. So it’s a pleasure to see for a change a play that offers us a substantial four course dinner.

In his preface to the published script of Midnight in Moscow Dean Parker writes that the subject matter of his play “needed a decent-sized stage. It was a straight piece of bourgeois theatre, written for an older audience: a formal debate in dinner jackets and proper attire, so to speak.” 

While the relationships between the characters are pivotal to the play’s themes, which include unrequited love and poetry, they are not the be-all and end-all of the play. They are intertwined with questions about loyalty to one’s friends and loyalty to socialism. The play also explores the lingering repercussions of socialism today. A leitmotif throughout the play is a line from Pasternak: “Life’s not a stroll across a field.” 

The formal debate in dinner jackets and proper attire takes place in the New Zealand Legation in Moscow at the height of the Cold War in 1947. The Legation is run by charismatic and hard-drinking June Temm (Carmel McGlone) who is informed by the Americans that there’s spy in her Kiwi team.

It’s not Parker’s intention to make his play a whodunit. If you know anything about the Cambridge spies or have read or seen Julian Mitchell’s Another Country, it is easy to pick out the spy.

In the second act the play moves to Boris Pasternak’s dacha where Hugh (Jon Pheloung), Kiwi diplomat and poetry lover, goes to interview the famous poet and to meet his mistress Olga (Miranda Manasiadis). It’s a strange sequence that demonstrates the status of literature in both countries and it also contains a scene in which Hugh teaches Pasternak (Stephen Papps) a nonsense Kiwi song that I think is meant to be humorous but could well be cut.

The Legation also houses the urbane Kit (Gavin Rutherford, giving an outstanding performance), June’s naive niece Madeleine (Chelsea Bognuda), who is studying engineering and falls for Kit, and Sophie, Hugh’s sentimental wife (Jessica Robinson).

It is an absorbing, if uneven, play (literate, amusing dialogue with strong curtain lines that Rattigan would have admired) and it has been given an impressive production by Susan Wilson and her team.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer