“Diary Of A Madman”: My Review
Gogol’s “The Diary of a Madman,” starring Geoffrey Rush (pictured), has opened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Here’s my Financial Times review. Full review also after the jump.
‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown? Not if the monarch in question is played by Geoffrey Rush. In Ionesco’s Exit the King, the actor’s last, Tony-laurelled appearance in New York, he turned a royal into an acrobatic comedian. In The King’s Speech, Rush’s Lionel Logue lounges athwart the throne, his body language reassuring the imminent George VI that the top job isn’t so stressful after all.
‘In The Diary of a Madman, a production now packing them in at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Rush portrays Poprishchin, a low-ranking civil servant in St Petersburg who imagines himself the heir to the Spanish monarchy. Based on an 1835 short story by Gogol that has been adapted by Rush, David Holman and Neil Armfield, who also directs, it presents the actor with a virtuosic opportunity.
‘Rush takes advantage. In his love for Sophia, a well-born young woman with whom Poprishchin has fallen in love, he displays heartbreaking tenderness. In his relation with a Finnish maid – all female roles are taken by Yael Stone – Poprishchin gives a masterclass in loose-limbed exasperation.
‘And yet there is something effortful about Rush’s antics here. An unalloyed admirer might argue that the character’s arc, from farcical comedy to even more farcical tragedy, as the diary entries of several months are recited, requires extreme exertion. Emotionally, however, the intense clowning rings rather hollow.
‘I would not, though, have missed this production. In addition to reminding us of Rush’s unforgettable turn as the mad, scribbling de Sade in Quills, the BAM play gives us an opportunity to appreciate the Sydney-based company Belvoir.
‘The Diary of a Madman reunites the creative team from Belvoir’s 1989 production of this play: not only Rush and Armfield but also Mussorgsky-loving composer Alan John, set designer Catherine Martin and costume designer Tess Schofield. The overall physical impact of their work is apt: Martin has painted the walls of BAM’s Harvey space a Pompeiian red, with a sloping, dark-green ceiling. Schofield’s costumes include a seedy green suit and fading red overcoat for Poprishchin.
‘The effect, initially, is of Quentin Crisp decked out for Christmas. Crisp thought Gogol’s work “a mistakeâ€; I wonder if this Diary of a Madman might have made him issue a reassessment.’
