Camden New Journal - Theatre: The Slow Sword

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The Review - THEATRE by BRYONY DAVIES
Published: 13 December 2007

Incisive sword play that ably cuts to the quick

THE SLOW SWORD
Old Red Lion theatre

YOU are not safe. This is the seditious cry of Yuri Klavdiyev’s play, The Slow Sword.
Putin’s Russia is its setting, but its themes are undoubtedly universal.
Vlad, a young successful go-getter in Moscow, is disillusioned with his lot – a never-ending quest for money in an office where faceless colleagues speed past indiscernibly.
Vlad’s subsequent search for meaning in his life reveals that the plethoric inhabitants of his city – the drug addicts, criminals and cab drivers – are all after the same thing: money.
The backbone of the play, then, reveals itself as that axiomatic grindstone of the Soviet era: money is evil.
Klavdiyev is not, of course, pining for the pre-Yeltsin days – Yeltsin himself is the butt of his fictional cabbies’ jokes – rather indicating that the current situation of his characters is anything but liberated.
Both Klavdiyev’s writing and Noah Birkstead-Breen’s admirable adaptation and direction are certainly not afraid to confront this.
With sentences endlessly punctuated with expletives, a tone of both comic despair and desperate suffering emerges.
The disparity of the characters is captured by the sheer charisma of all on stage, bringing the action together in one solidly crafted whole, even if the episodic discussions about truth and meaning and the profound criticism of society sail a little too close to didacticism at points.
Perhaps it is Klavdiyev’s involvement with gangs in his native Russia before turning to drama which gives the play its resonance, distancing it from many other all too obvious post-Soviet criticisms.
Making use of the humble space available, the tableaux are presented with tremendous energy and exuberance, never settling into mawkish self-reflection.
Just like the regime under fire, The Slow Sword pulls no punches and comes at you with all the acerbic comedy, political opprobrium and candid violence you would expect from a crumbling ideology and an extremely talented playwright.
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