MELBOURNE FESTIVAL
THEATRE
WAR AND PEACE ★
Gob Squad
Malthouse Theatre
Until October 30
Gob Squad's War and Peace is an insult to Tolstoy's novel, and ranks among the worst pieces of theatre I've ever seen. Even fans of previous shows these theatrical renegades have brought to Melbourne (I count myself among them) will be annoyed by the lack of anarchic inspiration the British-German company usually brings to the table.
![The bulk of the show sees the performers "saunter around casually sabotaging the book".](/web/20161023142620im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/n/y/f/q/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs7hjq.png/1477213963763.jpg)
An adaptation of War and Peace, these artists seem to have decided, is out of their league, and what we get instead is a lackadaisical mix of middlebrow book club (complete with members who haven't read a word), glib personal digression, and infantile, passive-aggressive games that either refuse to engage – or engage superficially – with the text.
It begins with a sequence where the cast introduces a host of punters, three of whom eventually participate in a so-called "salon", returned to throughout. On the night I went, most of the "salon" conversation proved awkward and inarticulate – a far cry from the eloquent aristocrats in the opening scenes of War and Peace.
![The cast of Gob Squad's War and Peace and several audience members participate in "salon" throughout the play.](/web/20161023142620im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/7/n/k/d/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs7hjq.png/1477213963763.jpg)
Indeed, the bulk of this show sees the performers saunter around, casually sabotaging every fine quality of the book: the author's mastery of dialogue is inverted; his command of time and incident traduced by longueurs; his philosophical excursions reduced to vacuous generalities.
A fashion parade of characters from the novel appears in half-arsed costume for no good reason. John Lennon's Imagine and Coldplay's Viva la Vida are both sung, badly. The actors waddle across the stage dressed as an oak tree from page 700-and-something. I mean, honestly.
![The production is like a lackadaisical middlebrow book club, complete with members who haven't read a word.](/web/20161023142620im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/7/n/j/f/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gs7hjq.png/1477213963763.jpg)
There were just two entertaining moments: one featuring cute cat videos, the other a hair-raising anecdote from an audience member onstage about being stalked at 2am through the streets of a Baltic capital.
It's hard to know what sort of audience Gob Squad had in mind. Those hoping for something to enrich their experience of reading War and Peace are likely to feel patronised by faltering dramaturgy and a want of intellectual and aesthetic rigour; those who wanted a substitute for reading it, as the performers themselves admit, are going to be disappointed.
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