The Independent
by Paul Taylor, 14 May 2008

Most people know the story of Boris Godunov only through Mussorgsky's opera.

Thanks to Declan Donnellan and Russian company Cheek by Jowl, we now have a rare chance to experience Pushkin's original 1825 play. In a thrilling modern-dress version, it emerges as a mordant commentary on the instabilities of power and the repetitive nature of tyranny, and it crackles with edgy, topical relevance.

The play poses a challenge to directors: not only is it restlessly episodic and labourintense in terms of casting, it also lacks a conventional climax. There's no big showdown between the two rivals for the throne. Having murdered his way to the top, Tsar Boris is challenged by a young pretender, a runaway monk who claims to be the boy allegedly eliminated. Frustratingly, the two never met. Undaunted, Donnellan finds imaginative solutions to this problem and arrives at a unified vision of the piece.

The point about the warring opponents is that they are both fundamentally impostors and the production, in overlapping scenes, highlights that thematic kinship. For example, Grigory, the made-over monk, surfaces like the emanation of a bad conscience, eerily replacing the spectre of the child-victim as Alexander Feklistov's boorish Boris broods over his guilt.

Pushkin's crucial insight is that the pretender's supporters don't care whether he's fake: Grigory here acts like a game show host who welcomes his cheer-leaders with a slick insincerity. The theatre audience, seated on either side of the catwalk stage, are treated like the Russian mob to these cynical, showbiz exercises.

Evgeny Mironov’s excellent Grigory has just the right slippery quality as the protean pretender who sheds disguises like skins. His seduction of a Polish noblewoman proceeds by comic fits and starts. When he confesses his true identity, she allows him to resume once assured of his mad self-conviction. Power is the sexual turn-on; principle is utterly discounted.