There have been some complaints in Stratford recently about the staging of the RSC’s two Russian plays, “The Drunks”, and “The Grain Store”: complaints that the RSC should stage only Shakespeare, which, of course, is a load of nonsense. There’s been a tradition – going back to 1879 – of staging new works in Stratford, which is vital if new drama is ever going to get its head above the lonely foxhole of writing, and bring new theatre-goers – who otherwise may never sample the delights of the RSC – to give Shakespeare a go. Let’s never forget that Shakespeare was a new playwright once. Anyway, enough of that.

Last Thursday, 24th September, 2009, was press day for those plays, and I have to say I had a few misgivings about devoting some five hours of my life to two new plays. I needn’t have worried.

If we think of Russian literature (and we should) the names that spring to mind, inevitably, are Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Pasternack, Soljenitsin, and Sholokhov, who were all novelists. Now try and think of a few Russian playwrights? Er…the only ones that come to my mind – without too much thought and reference to Google, who isn’t a Russian playwright – are Chekhov, Pushkin and Gogol. And if you came up with the same names as me, you’ll now need to add three new names to that list – Mikhail and Vyacheslav Durnenkov ( two delightful brothers), and Natal’ia Vorozhbit, whose talents are extreme, and a direct literary and dramatic link to Tolstoy and the rest. In other words they’re very good.

The Drunks (translated by Nina Raine) is one of the funniest – and blackest – pieces of modern drama I’ve seen for a very long time, which, in the hands of director, Anthony Neilson, uses some of the best established RSC devices to keep the thing moving along at a cracking pace, not least the use of crates and boxes that become trains, catwalks, boardroom tables, prison cells, whatever. This device was reinvented for the RSC’s superb Nicholas Nickleby of the 1980s, and a good many productions after that.

The action of the The Drunks is not in any way original, but a tried and tested story of a soldier, Ilya – played with an extraordinary and impressive weariness by Jonjo O’Neill – returning after the war in Chechnya, although it felt to me much more as if Ilya was returning from Afghanistan in 1980s – to find his village in the hands of a rather ridiculous and seemingly always drunk mayor, played lurchingly, and rather disconcertingly, by the superb Brian Doherty, who is backed-up sublimely in the ridiculous and drunken stakes, by the impressive Darrell D’Silva’s totally mad military governor, who couldn’t organise a piss-up in the no doubt overworked local brewery. These two idiots decide, with the news of Ilya’s return, to turn the soldier into a local hero, with devastating results for all concerned.

And this lurching, reeling sensation, is at the core of this strange and funny play, because we realise pretty soon that it’s a metaphor for a reeling and lurching Russia, where institutionalised alcoholism is at last – quite literally – bringing modern Russia (as it did the USSR) to its knees, where wars, any wars, can no longer – coupled with the alcohol – divert the public’s attention from the ineptitude and rottenness of the state, and where the individual has even less hope of freedom – in whatever form that might come – than under Stalin’s iron fist of the 1930s and 1940s.

But why is it funny?

The humour is in the writing, but not so much in the actual dialogue as in the visual irony the Durnenko brothers set up, most notably at the start when a group of fellow train passengers persuade Ilya to take a drink of Vodka. When he does – having, surprisingly, stayed pretty much on the wagon during his military exploits – his fellow passengers remove their jackets to reveal CCCP tee-shirts and great him with…

SECOND PASSENGER: Back to the real world

PASSENGER: Back to reality.

It’s a chilling image and, oddly, very funny.

I then realised that we were laughing at the brilliant ensemble acting as much as the ironic situations, in the same way we laugh at  Carry-On films.

My only gripe is the over use of the “F” word, which is quickly becoming redundant in modern drama, and rather jars in this production.

But that to one side, these two young playwrights (who hugged and kissed each other at the end of the performance) are undoubtedly changing the concept of theatre in Russia, and probably here too.

The Grain Store is a very different kettle of fish altogether.

Written by Natal’ia Vorozhbit (translated by Sasha Dugdale), this epic of a play – set in 1929 – could only be Russian, and has the feel, colour and grit of Mikhail Sholokhov’s sprawling novel, And Quiet Flows The Don.

It also has the same mix of hope and hopelessness as a village community comes face to face with the realities of collectivisation as their land and religion is taken away from them; with their ability to feed themselves and their community replaced by a need to grow crops for export to pay for Stalin’s rapid industrialisation. It was a brutal, uncaring and murderous time.

And all these elements are beautifully caught in Vorozhbit’s writing, and Michael Boyd’s superb direction, with Sam Troughton’s portrayal of actor, Ivan Ivanovich (who leads a neo-realist acting company trying to re-educate the local populace), an absolute joy to watch. Every time he and his motley group were on stage the production lifted wonderfully, creating a chilling spectacle of how art can be used for bad as well as good.

Again, the RSC ensemble work in this show is precise and concentrated, with marvellous performances by Arsei Pechoritsa, Kelly Hunter, Geoffrey Freshwater, John Mackay and Forbes Masson.

But for me this play has one star, and that’s Kathryn Hunter, whose portrayal of the young boy, Gavrilo, was  truly exceptional, poignant, terrifying and, at time, very very funny.

My only problem with this play – which will become a classic – is that it is too long, far too long. And although it had  been cut during rehearsals, it needs to be cut again, by at least twenty minutes, which will make it even more powerful, and less ponderous toward the end.

Both plays are now starting a UK tour, and, I understand, will return to Stratford next year.