The End: Tami Stronach and Paco Tolson in Goodbye Cruel World. Photo: Jim Baldassare

 

Goodbye Cruel World

Adapted and directed by Robert Ross Parker

From a literal translation by Marina Raydun of Nikolai Erdman’s Samoubiistsa

ArcLight Theatre

152 West 71st Street

800-838-3006

 

Review by Ethan Kanfer

 

In 1928, the Soviet Union was only 11 years old, but playwrights like Nikolai Erdman were already giving voice to a frustrated citizenry by satirizing the regime’s hollow rhetoric and tangled bureaucracy. Not surprisingly, the state hit back, and Erdman’s creativity — and his citizenship — was stifled by the Stalin government. Erdman’s Samoubiitsa (The Suicide) didn’t see a full production until after the author’s death. To bring this historical artifact to light is in itself a worthwhile gesture. But Goodbye Cruel World is more than just a museum piece. Thanks to some high-octane performances and Robert Ross Parker’s sprightly adaptation, this fable of an Everyman in trouble is both informative and riotously entertaining.

 

Humiliated by his inability to find gainful unemployment, Semyon Semyonovich, played by Paco Tolson, scrapes together enough cash for a rusty tuba and an instruction book. His hopes of a career in music are dashed, however, when the instrument proves more difficult to learn than he expected. Growing increasingly despondent, Semyon considers shooting himself. Word quickly spreads, and soon our unlikely hero becomes finds himself surrounded by seemingly well-intentioned visitors.

 

In an effort to further their own causes, representatives of various special interests clamor to claim this tragic figure for their own. The State, The Proletariat, The Arts, Industry, The Church, and The Intelligentsia all believe they can curry political favor by turning hapless Semyon into a poster boy. An instant celebrity, Semyon is thrilled that his luck has changed. But there’s a problem. He’s not so sure he really wants to die, and now, with pressures mounting on all sides, he might have to go through with it.

 

Under Parker’s taut direction, the committed, versatile cast handles everything from slapstick beats to seething diatribes with deft precision. They are aided by Nick Francone’s comically dreary set and Theresa Squire and Antonia Ford-Roberts’s vaudeville-Bolshevik costumes. As enjoyable as the character’s antics are, however, there is a poignant side to their self-deluded speeches.

 

From flat bromides about the coming Revolution, to a wistful rendition of the Communist anthem “The Internationale,” Goodbye is filled with touching depictions of what happens to the human spirit when a utopian dream becomes a totalitarian nightmare.

 

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