Every Good Boy Deserves Favour – Tom Stoppard *****

Tom Stoppard’s play is unusual and brilliant in that it requires a full orchestra to be present on stage and participate in the action. For this reason, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour is unfortunately only rarely performed. Thankfully, in response to the success of the 2009 run, the National Theatre is staging a limited run this winter with the Southbank Sinfonia. The power of its themes, of imprisonment, madness and corruption, lends this play a gravitas which stands in counterpoint to the dark humour and comic absurdity of much of the action.

A political dissenter, Alexander Ivanov (Adrian Schiller), is interred in an asylum for suggesting that the Soviet system commits sane men (his nonconformist friends) to mental institutions. Caught in a Catch 22-type situation, whereby he must admit to being cured of his psychosis in order to be freed, he refuses to bring about his own release for fear of validating the lies of the Soviet regime and corroborating in their corruption. Coincidentally, his cellmate, also named Ivanov (Julian Bleach), is genuinely insane, believing himself to be in possession and in control of a full orchestra. Apart from providing much entertainment and comedy, Ivanov’s real lunacy allows for a confusion of identities when the Corporal comes to review the two men’s cases for imprisonment. Both are freed but this is no simple solution; the psychotic Ivanov is lost and vulnerable when unleashed on the world, and Alexander has slipped through the net on a technicality when he wanted to act autonomously to expose a hypocritical regime.

The interplay between actors and orchestra is exceptionally handled with the doctor, played by Jonathan Aris, moving fluidly from his acting role into a violinist and back again. Interestingly, the audience participate in Ivanov’s delusion in being able to see the orchestra live on stage, whereas those characters within the play are oblivious to it. Just like Ivanov, we derive pleasure from this music and we feel the loss as keenly as he when the orchestra disbands in what seems to be a violent and cruel catharsis. The received wisdom that madness needs to find a cure is challenged here in a play fraught with conflicting impulses. Sacha, Alexander’s young son played by Wesley Nelson, reminds us that, in sacrificing himself to expose the regime, his father will leave him alone and miserable in a brutal world. Only sixty-five minutes in length, this play carries the weight and fullness of a three-hour production, creating a lasting impression that endures far beyond its duration in the theatre.