Financial Times, October 31 1991, by Alastair Macaulay.
"Tovarich; Piccadilly Theatre"
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It is ironic that the great star performance in London 
theatre today is being given by an actress performing in her 
first play. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Natalia Makarova 
was (with Lynn Seymour) one of the world's two supreme 
dramatic ballerinas. Now, building on her triumph on both 
sides of the Atlantic in her talking and dancing role in "On 
Your Toes," she has become an all-talking actress without 
any loss of stellar brilliance or dramatic power. You expect 
her to be an icon of glamour, and she is to the nth degree. 
But what is surprising is her wit, her timing, her stillness 
and her economy. 

Nobody could expect to see a snobbish play like "Tovarich" 
onstage today, but I hope that, in this case, nobody minds. 
Jacques Deval's play, set in Paris in 1932, is about a pair 
of White Russians. Obliged to work as housemaid and butler 
to a nouveau riche family, they find they love it. When 
played as it is here, "Tovarich" turns out to have many old-
fashioned theatrical virtues. It is marvellously rewarding 
to play, with good lines even for the smallest roles. 
Patrick Garland's staging, successfully transferring from 
Chichester, abounds in stylishness, right down to the 
perfect choice of French and Russian music to introduce and 
curtail each act. 

Robert Powell is completely charming as her husband. I 
realise that until now I have never liked him as a film 
actor; but here he has humanity and warmth. George Murcell 
plays Comrade Gorotchenko - correctly, I think - as a 
civilised brute. (At Chichester Tony Britton employed a more 
elegant and imposing kind of menace.) The several western 
European roles are played with great ebullience and the dash 
of caricature that today is surely the best way to play 
these roles in this social comedy. 

But there is never a hint of mockery in the performances of 
Makarova and Powell. This not only enables them to negotiate 
the play's more sombre episodes without changing manner, it 
also makes them, again and again, the most funny and 
loveable people onstage. 

It must be said that, while Makarova is the production's 
most sublime element, she is also its most flawed. Her voice 
is creamy and melodious, her pacing and timing are 
exemplary, but she has not yet acquired the strength of 
breathing or the lucidity of diction to project her every 
word to the back of a large theatre. 

Anyone who sees her must hope that she can improve in these 
directions, and that - for other roles - she can lose most 
of her Russian accent. I say this because I long to see her 
in any number of great roles - and not just in Chekhov and 
Turgenev.


Picture: Natalia Makarova, magical 



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