Consistently drawing the lessons to be learned from the playing out of the scenes, the Narrator is the omniscient, controlling eye Tolstoy wished to, but knew he could not, be.
Jonathan Epstein's commanding, resonant narration almost succeeds in keeping the explosive elements of the play under control. At the start of each act, Epstein literally bounds on stage, organizing and directing the action with the sheer energy and power of his voice. Epstein's careful pacing helps drive home the moral of the play but his tone does not moderate sufficiently when he steps inside the action and plays an old man in a train station.
With the gradual opening of his clenched fists and the slow crumbling of his waxen face, Mariani marks each stage in the deterioration of a man who loses everything--from the reforms he sponsored to the women he loved--and now stands "before the abyss. Epstein moves beautifully through the role of the self-sacrificing woman who chooses an ascetic existence with her task-master father rather than the promises of marriage.
With penetrating glances, Epstein conveys the other-worldliness that enables Maria to be the one character who does not feel constrained by her limited role in life or in the sparsely written play. By contrast, Linda Kirwan's Natasha longs to break from her bounds.
While Kirwan's impetuosity seems appropriate for the romantic year old girl she is at the beginning, her emotions are too wild for the older, sincerely repentant woman who later begs Andrei for forgiveness. Peter Wirth's Old Prince Bolkonski is static at the other extreme, delivering each line with the dry rigor of orders given in battle. It is as if the dead delusions of historians have triumphed in a way greater than even this part demands.
Most of the other actors skillfully manipulate their minor roles with characteristic panache. Chris Clemenson squeezes the wisdom of General Kutuzov from a wonderfully wizened frame. And John Blazo as the soldier Kuragin easily seduces Natasha with a slickness worthy of the serpent in the garden. Image: Michael Glenwood. IT IS the year Physicists have long had a Grand Unified Theory of Everything and neuroscientists now know precisely how the hardware of the brain runs the software of the mind and dictates behaviour.
Lately, reports have begun to emerge that computer engineers at the Institute for Advanced Behavioural Prediction have built a quantum supercomputer that draws on these advances to predict the future, including what people will do and when.
Suddenly, deep philosophical questions are making headlines as commentators sound the death knell for free will. On the face of it, the consequences of proving all our actions are predetermined look bleak. For each Jesus, the other two were fakers, while they were the real deal. As delusions go, the Messiah complex is extreme. Most delusions are far more mundane, such as an unfounded belief that you are exceptionally talented, that people are out to get you or that a celebrity is in love with you.
In fact, more than 90 per cent of us hold delusional beliefs. You may find that figure shockingly high — or perhaps you see evidence all around, in the willingness of so many people to swallow fake news, in the antics of politicians and celebrities, and even among your Facebook friends. Either way, what exactly does it mean? Why are some of us more prone to delusions than others?
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