Theatre in Review: Doctor Zhivago (Broadway Theatre)

	Kelli Barrett, Tam Mutu. Photo: Matthew Murphy

I hate to point out the obvious, but when a musical begins with three funerals in a row, trouble is probably lurking in the wings. That's the case with Doctor Zhivago, which moves swiftly from one harrowing situation to another -- scenes of war, devastation, grueling poverty, and at least two suicides. Anyone who fondly remembers the sweepingly romantic David Lean film of Boris Pasternak's novel is likely to be bemused, to say the least, by the grim, clanking spectacle at the Broadway Theatre. From the production number that features a chorus member vomiting to the on-stage removal of a bullet from a bleeding body, Doctor Zhivago means to be one serious musical. Serious, however, shouldn't imply an absence of pleasure, and I'm sorry to report that Doctor Zhivago may be the most anhedonic musical I've ever seen.

Michael Weller's book ruthlessly streamlines Pasternak's crowded chronicle, eliminating minor characters by the dozen and focusing on five protagonists: Yuri, a scientist and poet who is caught up in and ultimately destroyed by the Russian Revolution; Tonia, his childhood sweetheart and wife, who gradually comes to realize that she isn't first in his heart; Lara, the troubled young woman, haunted by a scandal-ridden youth, who becomes Yuri's lover and muse; Antipov, Lara's husband, who embraces the revolution and later becomes the brutal head of a band of Red partisans; and Viktor Komarovsky, the cynical, corrupt lawyer who is linked to them all. Over the course of nearly two decades, their lives are cruelly upended by war and revolution, scattering them across the length and breadth of Russia. And yet, as in the novel, they are forever running into each other: There's not much privacy out on those steppes.

Even so, Weller struggles to tame Pasternak's unruly narrative into a workable musical drama. The opening sequence races through so many events that it's like watching a coming-attractions trailer for Doctor Zhivago. Among other things, we are introduced to the characters as children, they grow up, Yuri and Tonia get married, Lara and her mother come to Moscow, Komarovsky seduces Lara, Antipov heads out to a demonstration, Lara keeps his gun, the demonstrators are shot down and attended to medically by Yuri, and Lara, seeking revenge, attends a party where Yuri and Tonia are guests, where she tries to shoot Komarovsky, hitting another man in his stead. And that's just the first ten minutes.

The characters are forever dropping chunks of exposition into their dialogue, just to keep us up to speed. At one of those funerals, Komarovsky, looking at the boy Yuri, says, "Poor child, imagine being born a Zhivago -- Zhivago factories, Zhivago estates, even a Zhivago brandy -- and suddenly it's all gone; mother dies, now his profligate father loses the entire fortune and hurls himself in front of a train." Got all that? Later, Lara says to Yuri, "Are you aware your poem is the talk of Moscow? People copy it by hand and pass it around to friends." This leads us to one of Weller's odder innovations, the decision to transform Yuri from a modestly successful writer of medical and philosophical articles who quietly dabbles in poetry into a Soviet-era Robert Frost, whose celebrity precedes him wherever he goes.

This is an indication of the flattening-out process that, on its way to the Broadway Theatre, has robbed the narrative of any subtlety or irony, turning it into a breathless melodrama filled with heaving bosoms and overripe dialogue. Antipov is no longer a true believer in communism; stunned by Lara's wedding-night revelations of her affair with Komarovsky, he tries to even the score by wiping out the bourgeoisie. "I gave my life to avenge her shame," he says, sneering at Yuri, and adding, "What did you do for her except write poems?" He then says, "You see, the revolution was a success; it made us equals, two enemies of the state, sick with love for the same woman." Komarovsky, who has sexually enslaved Lara, purrs, "I'll return at midnight. If you're not here, I may have to visit your student friend and tell him how you cry out with pleasure when we make love." And the following exchange provoked titters from the audience at the performance I attended:

Lara: This is so dangerous; if Strelnikov finds out....

Yuri: The partisan commander? Why would he care?

Lara: He's my husband, or was when he was called Pasha Antipov.

Yuri: Your husband's alive? God help me, I was his prisoner. He asked about you.

Interspersed amid these soap operatics are scenes of battle, squalor, and loss of life, as most of the supporting cast is wiped out during the civil war that follows the toppling of the czar. The production must set a record for the number of (very loud) instances of gunshot; in one particularly grisly sequence, a woman cuts her throat in front of Zhivago, who then shoots her dead in an act of mercy killing. Such material doesn't offer many lyric possibilities, and, aside from the big ballad, "Love Finds You," which develops into a reasonably affecting quintet for the leading characters, most of the songs are set to a martial beat, with lyrics that don't get too much cleverer than the following: "Two worlds/As it ever has been/Two worlds/Ever faster they spin/Caught in the tide/Passion and pride/Who can predict/What the fates will decide/When two worlds/Collide?" Well, at least there are no false rhymes. And if you're curious, yes, the score includes "Somewhere My Love," the pop tune culled from Maurice Jarre's score for the film. It doesn't sound like anything else in the score and is delivered, oddly, by Yuri, Lara, and a team of Red Cross nurses when the end of World War I is declared.

What with the one-thing-after-another storytelling and Des McAnuff's speedy direction, we never get to know the characters well enough to care what's happening to them. They're always busily rushing off to a demonstration or a battle or something. Still, as Yuri, Tam Mutu, making a long-delayed Broadway debut, is a solid leading man with a strong presence and a big, resonant voice; I certainly hope we see more of him. That Kelli Barrett's Lara is such a tough customer may not be the actress' fault -- the writing and direction would seem to have plenty to do with it -- still, it's not easy to see her as a woman whose air of mystery and sensual/spiritual nature ensnares three very different men. Paul Alexander Nolan's Antipov at least seems driven by an authentic passion, and his singing voice is nothing short of astonishing. As Tonia, Lora Lee Gayer is stuck with a thankless role and dowdy costumes. Tom Hewitt's Komarovsky is easily the most compelling personality on stage, his destructive ways interestingly mingled with his real feelings for Lara.

The production benefits hugely from a starkly effective set design by Michael Scott-Mitchell in his Broadway debut. Working from a libretto that is more like a screenplay, his solution -- a raked stage with four portals, four sets of sliders, and four diaphanous curtains -- allows for lightning-fast transitions. A raised platform, which travels up and down stage, even sinking into the deck at times, deftly stands in for a railroad train, an operating theatre, and various other locations. Scott-Mitchell also inserts into the action a couple of attention-getting red socialist posters, as a sign of changing times. The curtains serve as surfaces for Sean Nieuwenhuis' evocative black-and-white projections of soldiers, peasants, and nurses, among others. An upstage video wall also provides atmospheric imagery of smoke and rain. The on-stage looks are always clean and clutter-free. Howell Binkley's lighting, which ranges from icy winter moonlight to acid yellow washes for the heat of battle, is unfailingly right. Paul Tazewell's costumes are beautifully done, although in a few instances, especially the epilogue in Moscow in 1930, they seem a little chic for those living oppressed under the communist boot. The sound, by SCK Sound Design, is a bit loud for my taste, although there is probably no other way of dealing with the bombastic score; in any case, the lyrics are thoroughly intelligible, and the various effects are equally well done.

It's easy to see the attraction Doctor Zhivago must have posed for this creative team: Surely they saw a Les Miz-style blockbuster in the pages of Pasternak. But Victor Hugo's novel is held together by the ruthless manhunt of Inspector Javert for Jean Valjean. Doctor Zhivago is too diffuse, too internal, too downbeat to merit the same sort of treatment. Under the contrived narrative and grim surface of Les Miz is a powerful sense of idealism and hope. Under the contrived narrative and grim surface of Doctor Zhivago, there's just more of the same. -- David Barbour