Children of the Sun

I share with you a post I wrote back in July. Sorry it's so short, it was a busy time!

At 5:30pm, after a day of work at tuesday's Child TV in July, off I went to meet Kamal at Southbank. After a ridiculously hefty fight to get on the overcrowded tube in the hot weather, I managed to squeeze myself into a carriage. 15mins and I was with Kamal, drinking a well deserved pepsi at the National - living dangerously.

We soon went in, took our 5th row stalls seats (for £5 once again!), and admired the wonderful set. I have to say, I was glad I read the programme during the wait for the curtain. Because I don't feel that I would have appreciated any of the symbolism as much as I did without it. It is fair to say that the playwright Maxim Gorky, truly did not ever appreciate the accuracy of his predictions of people living in cars and the advancement of science in the modern world.

The opening was extremely clever, beginning with a workman trying to open the rusty iron door and then the set flipping round to see the inside of an upper class home. (Pictured).

The main cast represented higher society, the landowner representing the Russian Tsar, the workers representing the lower classes and Gulag workers and Protasov representing the 'improvement of society' that - as we learn later - comes at a great cost.

The story builds, bringing us some truly wonderful characters (and some annoying ones) with the ever-anxious and pessimistic Lisa, being                           the one to represent the desperation of the situation. We watch as innocents from the village are taken ill, as new maids to the house set out to find love and as many tales of poverty and financial division in a society that it surely set for civil war...or at least a fight back to take the upper class down a peg or two.

We arrive at the finale, after a barrage of misread and misdirected emotions and priorities. The scientist, through all his experiments has accidentally poisoned the water supply for the lower classes and now they are fighting back. Representing the storm on the Winter Palace, the civilians storm the grounds, as Lisa goes mad with grief for the loss of her love's life. It ends with Protasov being the only one left inside, with covered rioters entering his home with a flaming beacon. Tied to a chair, Protasov is unable to act when his home (yes, the entire set pictured left) goes up in flames!

Now that, I did not expect! But, what great set design and special effects! I certainly felt the heat, no pun intended.

After some long discussions about the meaning of the piece, going from class divides, to socialism, to education and improvement of society and debating whether it is it always detrimental, Kamal and I travelled home and slept, only to spend the weekend doing something that many would never expect of us....NOTHING! This piece had a tremendous cast, particularly the Nanny and the Doctor and I wish I could see it again as I feel there were many more hidden referrals to history that i could appreciate given the opportunity. A clever piece and one that spoke for society far more than the writer could ever have imagined. I wonder what he would think if he saw our world now!

Not much of a review, but I certainly enjoyed it. 8/10 for sure.