Firebird

by Richard Hough

seen at the King's Head Theatre on 8 February 2025

Richard Hough's play is inspired by the film Firebird, and both play and film are based on Sergey Fetisov's memoir The Story of Roman. Owen Lewis directs Theo Walker as Pte. Sergey Serebrinnikov, Robert Eades as 2nd Lt. Roman Matvejev, Shorcha Kennedy as Luisa Jannsen, and Nigel Hastings as Col. Alexei Kuznetsov.

The play is more stripped down than the film, with the narrative altered to intensify and simplify the story, but the result is extremely effective, with less circumstantial detail to allow the piece to be performed by only four actors. The basic shape of the story, the illicit affair between Roman and Sergey, and Roman's divided loyalties (he marries Luisa), remains the same. The link to Stravinsky's Firebird is pointed by the use of feathers rather than flowers as social gifts at significant points, and by Roman's explanation that the firebird is desirable despite bringing bad luck as well as good luck to the one who finds it.

The King's Head theatre's been transformed since my last visit in 2022 to see a highly adapted version of La Bohème. Now, rather than being in the back room of the King's Head pub, it is in a larger space adapted in the basement of the building behind the pub, allowing for more acting and audience space and more sophisticated lighting and sound. This chamber version of Sergey's story was well suited to the space, employing versatile scene setting to propel the story from army barracks to a Moscow flat.

The danger threatening the two men, since homosexual affairs were illegal in the Soviet military, was perhaps less immediately felt than in the film: talked about rather than shown. However, the personal predicament triggered by Roman's decision to marry was brought to the fore, and the denouement remained poignant and guardedly hopeful.

The cast were excellent, the three young people believable friends despite their different ranks (Luisa is also in the military at the beginning of the play), and the older colonel a somewhat crusty but intriguingly humane presence in both their military and later civilian lives. Robert Eades's Roman was perhaps a little too declamatory for the space, but it suited the character's deflection of his feelings into military service.