In 1992, Helen Edmundson’s adaptation of Tolstoy was an award-winning success for Shared Experience. This revival, originally a student showcase at Birmingham School of Acting, now gets a somewhat unmerited new lease of life. Directed by Max Webster, it demonstrates that what looks thrillingly theatrical in expert hands appears clumsy and pretentious when executed less nimbly.
Edmundson sets up Anna and Levin, with their romantic disappointments and socially transgressive behaviour, as two sides of one coin that is repeatedly spun and tossed into the air as they take turns as narrator.
The use of microphones and modern music, intended to emphasise the story’s timeless relevance, merely looks daft. And though the company gamely attempt a revamped version of Shared Experience’s trademark physicality, it feels forced.
Coarse performances also mean that Edmundson’s necessary kaleidoscoping of the action accrues a hysterical soapiness. There’s desperate, overworked intensity aplenty; it counts for next to nothing.