When Friedrich Schiller died aged 45 in 1805, he left not only masterpieces like Mary Stuart, but plans for a historical tragedy about Dmitry, the pretender to the Russian throne who overthrew Boris Godunov in 1605. Peter Oswald turns this material into a juicy political thriller to open the new Marylebone theatre, based at Rudolf Steiner House (his play runs alongside lectures on theosophy and biodynamic gardening). In it, Dmitry embraces his destiny – he is supposedly the son of the former tsar, secretly rescued from Godunov’s assassins. Now he returns to Russia, supported by the Poles, the pope and a Cossack army, each with their own motives for his victory.
Schiller’s history plays were strongly influenced by Shakespeare, while Oswald was writer in residence at Mark Rylance’s Globe. There is certainly something Shakespearean in the panoramic shuttle between factions, and the way scenes of public assertion are slashed by moments of intense private doubt, shared with the audience alone.
As he closes on success, Dmitry (a callow Tom Byrne) questions his true identity, his traumatic infancy lost: “I have been flung into the wind without any memory.” Urging him on are figures of fearsome conviction: James Garnon’s bullish papal envoy, getting handy with a lectern, and Mark Hadfield’s Polish prince, wincing at the budget for invasion. Poppy Miller’s deposed tsarina proclaims Dmitry as her son but is gnawed by grief and guilt.
Inside the Kremlin, Daniel York Loh’s Boris brings echoes of Stalin and Putin, the thuggish spymaster turned tyrant, ranting at the “so-called dead”. When events turn against him, he recognises an “end point beyond the end point”.
There’s gamey acting elsewhere in Tim Supple’s earnest, driving production: a cast of blokes bellow through their beards on Robert Innes Hopkins’ handsome wooden set. Oswald has been carving this material for a decade, but the tussle over the soul of Russia and the nation’s recurrent turn towards tyranny inevitably feels pertinent. Big lies go head to head, and everyone enlists God for their cause: “Heaven has spoken – what will Earth reply?” Who controls the narrative, the play asks; whose story of the past will determine the future?
At Marylebone theatre, London, until 5 November.
