Few people, given the twentieth-century world and unlimited relocation opportunities, would pick Moscow in 1926. There were worse places – Moscow in 1916, 1936 or 1946, for instance – but this was still a cold, economically and infrastructurally backward city. Which is why, when Volodya the printer turns up, he has to sleep in his old war buddy Kolya’s tiny flat. And also why, when Kolya’s wife Ludmilla tires of her tyrannical husband, there’s a convenient alternative right there on the sofa.
There is some nice fancy footwork on David Woodhead’s inventively cluttered set and a couple of marvellous scenes, particularly a visit to the cinema (the play is billed as a ‘silent movie musical’) that resembles a delightful masterclass in the variety of situations that don’t require words. But every word is sung, and the gimmick of repeating lots of nouns in different situations accompanied by indifferent tunes wears off rapidly.
We badly need Penelope Keith’s tart voiceover, which mocks the central idea that in Stalin’s Russia, where ‘no one could say much of anything’, complicated emotion leaked out through the silences. The actors struggle admirably, but the play palls between set pieces. Also should the Finborough's current season of work by women playwrights include a musical where libretto and original film are both by men?