When he wrote Enemies, Gorky was in love. The object of his desire was the artistry of Chekhov and this 1906 play is his attempt to emulate the master’s theatrical style. Copying from geniuses is risky. Any attempt is doomed, so it’s remarkable that Gorky fails so successfully. He reproduces Chekhov’s entire theatrical caboodle, the bubbling samovars, the smocked peasants, the candles glimmering through the silver birches, the bickering, lounging, drunken toffs, and to all this he adds an element of revolutionary prophecy. A local factory-owner stands up to Marxist agitators, but when he closes down the factory he is murdered by a mob. The assassin goes into hiding, the army arrives to investigate and the innocent community finds itself beset by the three great evils of the 20th century: ideological hatred, political violence and late-night debate about the merits of collectivisation. We the audience know where this is heading. Famines, evictions, death camps, firing squads and countless other horrors await the well-meaning land-owners and the blameless peasants. They on stage have no idea. This might give the play an atmosphere of poignancy and foreboding but I didn’t sense it at all. I felt very little, I’m afraid.
The show is presented with a sort of perfunctory bravura, Chekhov-with-our-eyes-closed kind of thing. But it’s no more than a curiosity for misty-eyed lefties still hankering after the purity and righteousness of early Bolshevism. In Islington, where everyone who owns a freehold property is a millionaire, it has nearly sold out.
Chris England can write one type of play but he does it brilliantly. A group of friends gather to watch a great sporting event on TV, and the on-pitch drama causes animosity, conflict and eventually violence.
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