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Review of The Devil & Stepashka "very gripping and haunting production" by Ali Sanderson for remotegoat on 16/06/14 Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on wordpress Share on print More Sharing Services 2

Goblin Baby Theatre Company returns to The Space with The Devil and Stepashka written by Claire Booker. The play, inspired by a Tolstoy short story, tells the story of Zhenya, a wealthy man who murdered his former lover, Stepashka, and now stands trial for her murder. His old friend and lawyer Boris defends him, claiming it was a crime of passion. His wife Lisa is still struggling with putting together the different elements of the puzzle and figuring out what truly happened. Last, but most definitely not least, we meet Dasha, the sister of the murdered Stepashka, who is only a simple and poor peasant but very witty in her own way.

The production is gripping and thought-provoking from beginning to end and left the audience with something to ponder and think on. The theatre was used in a set-up that reminded one of a court room, with some audience members even addressed as the jury, which added further to the feeling of being a part of the play’s journeys.

The set was simple but clever. Wooden elements were used in different ways throughout various scenes and a lot of the play’s atmosphere was created through lights, shadows and projections, rather than extensive sets. Overall production designer Christopher Keech is to be congratulated for achieving a varied and detailed design, without needing many gimmicks or a big budget.

The cast of four was diverse and international but all delivered solid performances. Particularly remarkable were Dimitri Shaw as lawyer Boris, a character that essentially carries the whole play, and Tessa Hart, who portrayed both the haunting presence of the murdered Stepashka as well as her living sister Dasha, and achieved to create entirely different characters and dynamics for both roles.

Booker’s play is very brave as well as unusual and this production is one of those hidden gems on the London Fringe. Event venues and times finished Space | 269 Westferry Road, London, E14 3RS finished Ye Olde Rose and Crown Theatre | 53 - 55 Hoe Street, Walthamstow, London, E17 4SA

Add your review? Have your say, add your review Other recent reviews by Ali Sanderson Exeunt Magazine

OWE & Fringe The Devil & Stepashka at The Space Theatre June 10th - June 20th 2014 Reviewed by Laura Seymour

People in roles. Photo: Leigh-Anne Abela

Zhenya (Paul Christian Rogers) is a rational man. He knows that if he succumbs to his passion for the peasant Stepashka (Tessa Hart), his idyllic marriage to another woman will be wrenched out of joint. And yet he knows that he can never get Stepashka out of his mind. The superstitiously secular, domestic world of Claire Booker’s The Devil and Stepashka manages to create a believable male Antigone in what ends up to be very literally one hell of a double-bind.

On certain days, the audience can vote on one of two different ‘endings’ (beginnings?) to the play: does Zhenya escape his dilemma by killing Stepashka, or by killing himself? This is a nod to the short story by Tolstoy on which the play is based, and for which Tolstoy wrote two alternative conclusions. But Booker’s plot, which on non-voting days deploys the first option and visits Zhenya in his prison cell awaiting trial for murder, adds texture and more of a female angle to Tolstoy’s narrative.

Lydia Lane is wonderfully precise and pernickety as Zhenya’s doting wife, Lisa, who is given much more space in Booker’s version of the tale. Whether she is folding sheets or inquiring incessantly after Stepashka’s child (who looks suspiciously like Zhenya) she has the harassed, loving, frantic possessiveness of a woman fearing, but refusing to believe, that she has been replaced. Lane makes it clear that Lisa finds validation only in Zhenya’s approval. This is excruciatingly obvious when she appears with a red scarf identical to Stepashka’s and tries, awkward as a ballerina in a music box, to please him by dancing a sensual ‘peasant dance’, just like her rival.

Onstage, hanging patches of criss-crossed metal in front of Zhenya’s seat suggest a prison cell, whilst their shadows on the backstage wall artfully conjure up a barred wall behind. The Devil and Stepashka makes effective use of film projections, too, to evoke Zhenya’s memories of Stepashka, showing that these recollections are as crisp and vivid as if they were happening now. In the context of this use of film, it is striking when the (now dead) Stepashka stalks right in to Zhenya’s prison cell as he stands reminiscing, causing us to turn our gaze from the cold film projection above to the real body of Stepashka sauntering below. This powerfully demonstrates Stepashka’s physicality in Zhenya’s mind and her propensity, even after death, to exceed anything but three- dimensional representation.

At times if feels that this play presents us more with the friction between character types, trapped in particular social roles, than with autonomous beings. In general, however, the meeting of the lawyer, peasant women, middle class husband, and provincial wife makes for a series of interesting, well-acted clashes. When the untouchable, buoyant lawyer Boris (played with callous gallantry by Dimitri Shaw) questions Stepashka’s sister Dasha (Hart) disapprovingly about Stepashka’s various lovers, Dasha’s repeated plea ‘but she so enjoyed it!’ pits an unabashed assertion of women’s right to pleasure for its own sake against the hypocritical and exploitative morality of the privileged classes. Though the (top-bantz) banter between Boris and Zhenya (in prison) and Dasha (in court), occasionally takes a while to warm up, the cast add some intriguing nuances to this handful of characters, not least when Boris seems likely to fall prey to a consuming passion similar to the one that bewitched Zhenya.

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FemaleArts.com The Devil & Stepashka, Ye Olde Rose and Crown - Review

Submitted by Michael Davis on July 21, 2014 - 03:00

“You’re the Devil in disguise.” So said Elvis Presley in his 1963 hit. The blame game in sexual politics has always been prevalent in culture, from the Pandora of the ancient Greeks opening THAT box to Eve eating from the forbidden tree in Eden. With that cultural baggage hanging around, will any legal system truly be unbiased? Using author Claire Booker’s adaptation of one of Tolstoy short stories, Goblin Baby Theatre explores this issue as one man faces trial for killing a woman with whom he had an affair. Returning to run his father’s country estate in the wake of his death, Zhenya misses the opportunities that life in the city offers, especially meeting the diversity of female company. Through a mutual acquaintance, Zhenya arranges to meet Stepashka, a peasant on the estate for regular trysts. These end when he starts courting Lisa – someone from his own social sphere – but the old magic isn’t there any more...

Throughout the play, people are placed on pedestals with unrealistic expectations. In the case of Lisa, (Zhenya’s wife), she thinks her husband is the victim of an lying, unstable woman, while Zhenya himself thinks of Lisa as pure, worthy, but not as a sensual person – at least not like Stepashka.

In truth, Zhenya has been lying to himself about how he really feels about Stepashka, not acknowledging that it is more than a purely physical relationship. In some ways his plight mirrors the plot of Federico Garcia Lorca's Blood Wedding. In that play, Leonardo Felix has a relationship with a woman, but breaks it off for reasons of his own. Later when he is unhappily married, Felix hears that his former love is about to get married herself. His reawakened feelings then trigger a sequence of tragic events. In Zhenya’s case, the return of Stepashka in his life and someone else receiving her affections is enough to send him over the edge.

When Zhenya talks to his lawyer and friend Boris about the subject of women, it is clear that both have a different way of appreciating the opposite sex. At first it seems like their conversation revolves around the usual jocular parameters, but it becomes clear that Zhenya doesn’t find articulating his thoughts pleasurable. For Zhenya, giving into his libido is something that he has to indulge from time to time but not admit to, especially to himself.

Stepashka however still haunts his thoughts. While Zhenya is incarcerated – both literally and by his own conflicted emotions – in his mind, even in death, Stepashka is freer tha he is. Unencumbered by guilt or sexual hang-ups and possessing an apologetic lust for life. The decision by director Leigh-Anne Abela to show projection footage of Zhenya’s memories with Stepashka was an inspired choice, as it allowed the audience to see an unadulterated view of events and a glimpse into Zhenya’s mind.

Aspects of The Devil & Stepashka also mirror Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, where a man is on trial following the acrimonious fallout after an affair. However, while John Proctor resisted being drawn in the hysterical accusations of supernatural activities, Zhenya uses it as his own defence for ‘being beguiled by Stepashka’s charms’ and having to put a stop to them. Of course, men blaming women for being ‘bewitched’ and having to satisfy their ‘insatiable’ libido is the oldest story in the book. In ancient Jewish folklore, Adam’s first wife was not Eve but Lilith. However, because she preferred to be in the dominant sexual position on top as opposed to the ‘submissive’ missionary position, she had ‘unnatural desires’, and therefore ‘obviously’ demonic. This idea filtered through to medieval folklore where she- demons called succabae would come to men’s beds and be responsible for ‘nocturnal discharges’. *Ahem*

But I digress.

In some ways, the trappings of religion in the play seem at odds with today’s secular society. However, we only have to look at Graham Green’s The End of the Affair to see how a single person’s belief in the divine – regardless of others’ views – can determine the fate of all. InStepashka it’s the undying belief and loyalty of Lisa that ultimately turns things around.

Lydia Lane plays Lisa with conviction, and one senses that Lisa’s solace from the Church is the only thing that stops her being completely swallowed by doubts and fears. Tessa Hart who plays Stepashka and her sister Dasha is the epitome of insouciance, especially in contrast to the understandably weary Zhenya and Lisa. Paul Christian Rogers delivers a believable, stoical performance as Zhenya, while Dimitri Shaw as Boris is as ardent and animated as Zhenya is still.

In some of the performances of the play, it has been left to the audience to decide whether Zhenya is guilty or not – forum theatre in action. I love that type of interaction, so it’s good that Goblin Baby have the opportunity to utilise it.

Before I started writing this piece, I read a news story about the most horrific assault in the Middle East. But because of the clout of the powers-that-be, the perpetrator in question has been protected from prosecution. The world is full of women with no voice of their own or no one to speak on their behalf. It is good that Goblin Baby Theatre in its own way highlights their plight in an entertaining, but provoking fashion. www.goblinbaby.com

Stars out of 5

Author's review: 4 Accessible content: 3 Challenging content: 3 Venue access: 2 Venue facilities: 4 Worth watching more than once: 4 Value for money: