CHILDREN OF THE SUN National Theatre/Lyttelton

Maxim Gorky wrote his satire whilst he was in prison during the abortive revolution in 1905. The intelligentsia, blind to what is going on politically in Russia, find out far too late that the working classes are beating at their gate. Protasov (Geoffrey Streathfeild) is a scientist who is so selfish as to be comic and so preoccupied with his experiments that he has no idea that his wife (Justine Mitchell) is having an affair with an artist (Gerald Kyd). The cruellest scene is when a besotted widow brings him a basket of eggs for him to use in his experiments and he and everybody else behave appallingly towards her. Meanwhile, his sister (Emma Lowndes) is much loved by a philosophical vet (Paul Higgins); but she fails to tell him she is, with fatal results. She is one of the few people who are aware of the terrible conditions of the poor, but since she is ill and mentally disturbed nobody listens to her. The play gets surprisingly serious in its final stages with cholera, suicide, madness and riots. At the 1905 premiere the finale was so convincing that the audience thought the theatre had been invaded by genuine rioters and had to be reassured by the actors. Howard Davies directs an admirable ensemble with his usual sure touch. The production has a stunning set by Bunny Christie and is recommended particularly to all those who enjoyed Davies’s production of Gorky’s Philistines at the National Theatre and who are interested in Russian history.