The disruption of bourgeois order is a classic theme. Never, to my knowledge, has it been better done than in Jean Renoir's 1932 film Boudu Sauvé des Eaux, in which a tramp is saved from drowning and causes mayhem in a respectable French family. The old tale is given a new spin, however, in this free adaptation of a Russian short story by Victor Erofeyev, which is directed by Ben Harrison with the same panache he brought to last year's outdoor hit Decky Does a Bronco.
My main question is whether the updating of the story distorts its meaning. In Erofeyev's 1980 original, Vova, the anarchic idiot who takes over a Russian family, resembled Lenin and was a metaphor for communism. In this version, we see a modern couple, whose apartment is a model of chic minimalism, finding their life of repressive order overturned by the intruder. Vova, whose invasive presence is explained as a form of "community service", begins by raiding the fridge and destroying the library. He goes on to impregnate the gratified wife, seduce the surprised husband and eventually commit an act of appalling violence.
Presented as part of the Gate's season on madness, Harrison's production and the collective adaptation take an essentially Laingian line: the real insanity lies in the bourgeois civil servant and his wife who, in seeking to banish mess and disorder, deny their instinctive selves. In this reading, Vova becomes either the Freudian id or a necessary destroyer who embodies the couple's unconscious desires. But the logic of Erofeyev's narrative doesn't mesh with the superimposed meaning. Vova is clearly meant to be a physical threat who finally goes berserk with a pair of scissors; that squares with the story's original political purpose but not with the idea of Vova as a symbol of freedom.
Even if the message is confused, the presentation is outstanding. The designer, Fred Meller, has transformed the Gate into a beautiful white box. A live musician, Charlie Winston, provides Satie-like accompaniment at the piano. And Fergus McLarnon as the grinning satyr Vova, Gregory Gudgeon as the finicky civil servant and Tea Alagic as his style-obsessed wife are all first-rate. Harrison has created an impressive spectacle in which the Russian household gods are pulverised; what is hard to accept is the idea that murderous anarchy is a form of liberation.
Until November 3. Box office: 020-7229 0706.
