This is London Magazine April Edition 2026 - Flipbook - Page 32
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SUMMERFOLK
National Theatre
We all know Summer folk, even in modern times. Perhaps
we refer to them as tourists, or weekenders. Never quite
accepted by locals who were born in the countryside, they are
still a source jollity, income, a breath of city life...
Maxim Gorky’s 1904 drama is more
biting, however. He regarded the Russian
middle classes, who could afford to
escape the summer heat of cities like
St Petersburg by staying in the dachas
they built outside of town as risible
bourgeois interlopers.
The satire is delicious. Queen of all
proceedings is Varvara (Sophie Rundle),
icily beautiful wife of rich and scurrilous
lawyer Bassov (Paul Ready). Varvara tries
to smooth and calm the atmosphere at
their grand dacha – a Gothic temple of
oaken beams, big enough to invite half the
intelligentsia of their acquaintance to tea
most days. By contrast, Bassov enjoys
stirring things up. He is rudely hilarious
and indiscreet and he enjoys the company
of men who cause even more outrage than
he does.
As with the depiction of any country
house party, the clashing personae of the
guests provides most entertainment. The
stage is practically set for a murder
mystery – but that would be too English.
Instead, Gorky’s underlying concerns are
political. It is the autumn of the Tsarist
regime in Russia and many people are
pondering what will come next. Two
peasants in brown clothing wander across
the stage between picnics, tutting over the
summer folk’s ways. They are not wrong
about them.
The fragile affections of this motley
crowd are generally shown to be selfish.
Scowling Pyotr works as little as possible
and yet presents himself as a worthy heir
to his uncle’s fortune. His wife Yulia hates
him but puts on a bright smile for
company, while quietly plotting to kill him.
Varvara has been besotted with the
intellectual brilliance of writer Yakov for
years, but the passion fizzles out when he
reveals his bald pate and aging morals.
Meanwhile Kaleria, Bassov’s sister, extols
the beauty of snowflakes etc in
excruciating poetry. In the 21st century,
she would be classed as a tree hugger.
Sophie Rundle (Varvara Mikhailovna) in
Photos: Johan Persson
Summerfolk.
This adaptation by siblings Nina and
Moses Raine – offspring of poet Craig
Raine – is sharply written and effortlessly
funny. The play is not all surface. Maria
Lvovna, a female doctor (who knew they
existed in the period?), is said to be old
and yet Justine Mitchell’s portrayal is both
glamorous and tender. She falls hard for
Varvara’s brother Vlass (Alex Lawther), a
Puckish young man with messy hair and a
reputation for failure. Their first kiss is a
muddle of tiptoes and craning necks over
a miniature gulf of water – a real stream
which opens up below the acres of timber
decking which form the stage. Lvovna is
honest about her feelings of loneliness
and enforced celibacy – we hear the truth
from this woman, who is almost the only
one to remember the working classes – a
milieu from whence they all came.
An explosion of furious denouncements
by characters, who have leapt one after
another onto a well laid dinner table,
makes a fitting climax to Summerfolk –
a sort of mini-revolution in a rural idyll. I
haven’t laughed so much at the theatre in
a long time.
Sue Webster
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