BWW Reviews: RTW'S THE KREUTZER SONATA Unleashes a Man's and Music's Passion

"Forgive me," asks a bearded, finely dressed older man appearing on stage. He rests on a red velvet seat in a train compartment during the late 1800's and empties his pockets one by one, and mentions, "A white silk handkerchief brushed with red lips has not been washed in over a year..."

Thus begins the one man performance by iconic Milwaukee actor James Pickering in Renaissance Theaterwork's adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata on stage in the Studio Theater. Written by Tolstoy as a novella in 1889 when the story was often banned and unpublished, Nancy Harris reinterpreted Tolstoy's text from the original Russian. She focuses on the philosophical and psychological drama the main character, a time and place when Pozdynyshev agonizes over hsi recently acquittal for murder after a year in prison.

During the 90 minute, no intermission production, Pickering builds the tension in Pozdynyshev's musings beginning from his "first journeys into manhood," until he eventually courts his young wife, her age 17 to his 34 years. After their blissful wedding, a word Pozdynyshev's finds misused, five children are born, and an old friend, a proficient violinist, might appear to destroy a turbulent marriage.

Pickering displays a continual range of emotions, evoking the audience to take this treacherous journey, on the train and in his mind, with him. When he descends into a madness near the final minutes, if this is indeed madness, the performance crescendoes to the ending, with a poetic descent back to the present day reality. On the train ride, his memories told in flashback recall the pivotal Beethoven music in his life--The Kruetzer Sonata--which plays in the background at certain times during the performance.

The Sonata appears at first recorded and then performed live by violinist Joseph Ketchum and pianist Colleen Schmitt throughout the show. The pair recreates the critical scenarios between Pozdynyshev's wife, who plays the piano to compensate for her disintegrating marriage, and Pozdynyshev's old friend, a proficient violinist. This includes a mesmerizing first movement of Beethoven's Sonata which stirs the passion music embodies in the Poszynyshev, the players and those sitting in RTW audience.

Poszynyshev'a love and jealously eventually stir him to view his wife and the violinist engaged in a tryst, where he loses his mental perspective. When this passion transforms to rage, the audience literally experiences his anger in the theater after experiencing this moving performance from Ketchum and Schmitt, playing their instruments veiled behind dark red scrim. The theater under Lighting Designer Noele Stollmack, and Scenic Designer Lisa Schlenker remains dim, also veiled in darkness, as does Posdynyshev's reminisces for the majority of the evening.

Production Director Marie Kohler and Music Director Jill Anna Ponasik sensously collaborated for this disturbing, provocative performance given life by Pickering. Tolstoy allows his character to speak several phrases worth repeating and says, "Every woman has her eye peeled for a partner...' and that his wife claimed, "She was so much more than motherhood (when she played the piano)." While Pozdynyshev reiterates "men and women should be equals..but they never will be until men are free of their desire," he also gives voice to "marriage is whoredom with a license." A phrase uttered by women in the 20th century, not to mention the 21st, if one also includes the entire world's view on matrimony.

These are questions worth revisiting, and give RTW applause for asking them of the men and women sitting in the audience. Listen closely to these statements beautifully delivered by Pickering and ponder again closely. How many of these preconceptions linger in 21st century thought? Love, passion and marriage distilled through a man's viewpoint while Tolstoy portrays a women's uncomfortable position in the late 19th and early 20th century. Born and bred to be married and play music or sew, and of course bear children, women and his wife were little more than property without human rights. Forgive Pozdynyshev or please forgive history and humanity.

At Sunday's performance talkback, the several times great grandson of Tolstoy, Mats Johansson, discussed The Kreutzer Sonata. He confirmed the novella related a semi-autobiographical view of the literary giant's own marriage. Tolstoy married at 34 to his18-year old wife, Sophia. They exchanged diaries on their marriage, to her distress, and both kept writing in the diaries all their lives while they produced 13 children, eight who lived to adulthood.

One survivor, Leo, became Johansson's great great grandfather, and followed in his father's footsteps when at age 24 he married a young 17-year old. The marriage produced a cadre of children, and Leo eventually left for Paris for another woman, after a time asking to return. Johansson ruefully stated the Tolstoy descendants were difficult men, and his grandfather was no exception, the pattern continuing in odd ways throughout their long lineage, a testament to fiction and truth.

Johansson finished the talkback with his own musing that the family has lived with the legacy of Tolstoy, this great author, whose personal ideologies conflicted with his humanistic passions and desires. Perhaps this is the poignant and powerful message portrayed through raw yet lyrical lines in Tolstoy's play and Harris' s adaptation. RTW's compelling The Kreutzer Sonata unleashes the dichotomy between ideals, illusions, passion and reality fueled by love and music. A play that asks the audience to remember the white silk handkerchief placed back in a pocket before Pozdynyshev repeats to end the performance, "Forgive me."

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