Review: A.R.T. Preps NATASHA, PIERRE AND THE GREAT COMET for Broadway

Book, music and lyrics by Dave Malloy; adapted from "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy; direction, Rachel Chavkin; choreography, Sam Pinkleton; scenic design, Mimi Lien; costume design, Paloma Young; lighting design, Bradley King; sound design, Matt Hubbs; wig and makeup design, Rachel Padula Shufelt; orchestrations, Dave Malloy;music supervision, Sonny Paladino; music direction, Or Matias; production stage manager, Karyn Meek

Cast in Alphabetical Order:

Sonya, Brittain Ashford; Mary/Maid Servant/Opera Singer, Gelsey Bell; Bolkonsky/Andrey, Nicholas Belton; Natasha, Denée Benton; Dolokhov, Nick Choksi; Hélène, Lilli Cooper; Marya D, Grace McLean; Balaga/Servant/Opera Singer, Paul Pinto; Pierre, Scott Stangland; Anatole, Lucas Steele; Ensemble: Sumayya Ali, Courtney Bassett, Josh Canfield, Ken Clark, Erica Dorfler, Daniel Emond, Lulu Fall, Ashley Pèrez Flanagan, Ncik Gaswirth, Azudi Onyejekwe, Pearl Rhein, Heath Saunders, Katrina Yaukey, Lauren Zakrin

Performances and Tickets:

Now through January 3, 2016, American Repertory Theater, Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle St., Cambridge, Mass.; tickets start at $25 and are available at the Box Office, online at www.AmericanRepertoryTheater.org or by calling 617-547-8300.

If the thought of seeing a contemporary opera based on Tolstoy's War and Peace sends Siberian shivers down your spine, fear not. All that Russian angst and all those convoluted relationships between "people with nine different names" are brought forth with ingenious musical clarity in NATASHA, PIERRE AND THE GREAT COMET OF 1812. Thanks to the brilliant sung-through score by Dave Malloy, the ingenious staging by director Rachel Chavkin, a sensational design team that blends Mother Russia with contemporary punk, and a troupe of 24 actors and 10 musicians who fill every corner of the A.R.T. with magic, this remarkable electropop opera fuses Old World melodrama with a modern-day edge to deliver a passionate love story for the ages.

From the moment audience members walk into the Loeb Drama Center auditorium, they realize they're not in Cambridge anymore. Instead they enter into the world of an opulent 19th century Moscow opera house replete with red velvet tapestries, gilt-edge mirrors, shiny brass railings and plush leather banquettes arranged in circles and semi-circles cabaret style. Gypsy troubadours weave among the bistro tables and throughout the aisles serving guests pierogies while singing folk songs. By the time the actual opera begins, the audience has been totally immersed, ready to experience fully the tragic story of innocence, betrayal, redemption and salvation drawn from a scandalous 70-page chapter of War and Peace.

As Napoleon wages war with Russia on the outskirts of Moscow, the young princess Natasha (Denée Benton) pines for her fiancé Andrey (Nicholas Belton), a soldier fighting at the border. Her godmother Marya D (Grace McLean) and cousin Sonya (Brittain Ashford) try to keep her in the good graces of Andrey's family - his sister Mary (Gelsey Bell) and his doddering but lecherous father, Bolkonsky (also Belton). Natasha is nevertheless enticed by the seductive Hélène (Lilli Cooper) to mingle with the aristocracy at the opera, where she meets and immediately falls in love with Hélène's brother Anatole (Lucas Steele), a handsome and petulant officer known for having his way with women. Confused and overwhelmed, Natasha impetuously decides to run off with Anatole, leaving Marya D and Sonya to save her from her own folly.

Meanwhile, Hélène's morose husband Pierre (Scott Stangland) drowns his self-loathing in vodka, unable to see the value in his own good heart and moral fortitude. He is haunted by what he sees as the emptiness of his own existence, but when angered by his wife's decadence and sickened by Anatole's narcissism, he springs into action to defend his and Natasha's honor. In so doing, he finds new meaning for his life - and the courage to pursue it.

Malloy's sometimes hard-driving, sometimes reflective electropop score is a perfect mash-up of Russian folk elements and a contemporary pop/rock sound. Accordions, clarinets, strings, drums, horns, piano, and electric guitars work in inventive harmony to create a world that is at once nostalgic and immediate. That duality is only enhanced by the fact that the lyrics have been taken directly from the text of War and Peace. The result is a score whose pulsing urgency makes Tolstoy's classic come alive anew.

There is humor in Malloy's rendering, too. The opening Prologue has the ensemble making certain that the audience will remember the many confusing Russian names they are about to hear by introducing the main characters in a round. The song that opens Act II, "Letters," also gives a wink and a nod to the 200-year difference between the letter-writing of yesteryear and the 140-character tweeting of today.

NATASHA, PIERRE AND THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 captures all of the camaraderie, danger, existential angst, and romantic intensity of a people who dare to celebrate life while threatened by the uncertainty of war. Given the epic nature of the story, performances are scaled accordingly. Benton makes Natasha's untimely loss of innocence positively heart-wrenching, while Stangland makes Pierre's hatred of himself both tragic and pitiable. Ashford reveals a fierce loyalty borne of love beneath Sonya's sisterly friendship with Natasha, and Cooper slithers like the snake in the Garden of Eden as the temptress Hélène. Belton shows that the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree first as the repugnant Bolkonsky and later as his unforgiving son Andrey. Steele is swagger personified as the preening cad Anatole.

Just before NATASHA, PIERRE AND THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 had its official opening at the A.R.T., producers announced a transfer to Broadway set for September 2016. In it Josh Groban will make his Broadway debut, taking on the role of Pierre. While it certainly makes sense to cast a likely box office draw as one of the title characters, it's too bad that Stangland won't continue. It is Pierre's journey that is the most compelling in this adaptation, and it is Stangland's performance that makes that journey unforgettable.

PHOTOS BY EVGENIA ELISEEVA: Denée Benton as Natasha and Company; Denée Benton; The Company; Denée Benton and Lucas Steele as Anatole; Scott Stangland as Pierre

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