Promise, good but not great

Deep loves, history, change, emotional bonds and naiveté. That's pretty much what The Promise is all about. As written by Aleksei Arbuzov and directed by senior Sonia Tatninov, it is a simple, well balanced story of leaving the loves one finds in youth. And it is a success.

The Promise has a simple stage: a wall, a door and a window, with furniture, depending on how happy the times were. The play took place in three time periods: the spring of 1942 during the siege of Leningrad, the spring of 1946 and the winter of 1959.

There were three characters: Lika (Patricia M. Comstock, junior), Marat (Jacob Hauser, junior) and Leonidik (John W. Bartly, junior). Lika, by far the best of the three, moves into an abandoned apartment for shelter. She burns all the furniture and photographs to help keep warm. By the time she's through, there is no longer any trace of anyone's ever having lived there.

Marat, an 18 year old boy who used to live there, returns. There are a few moments during which they, as victims of the same disaster, talk as if they knew each other. Then they introduce themselves. They become friends and soon lovers, almost. Marat is a healthy guy, uncomplicated and immature. He likes to build bridges. It soon becomes obvious he wants most to build them between himelf and Lika, to the world outside war - torn Leningrad. Then one day Leonidik bursts through the door crying something about good fire - wood and collapses on the floor. He is sick and week and a depressive poet who is only interested in understanding himself.

Everything the characters do reflects an element of the disaster going on outside their walls, exerting its terrible force on them. When Lika receives a parcel in the mail, Marat asks, "How did this find you?" She answers, "They will find you if they want to." The characters rarely say "I" or admit that they feel or see anything. It is all done to them by the outside world which is "they." So they huddle closer for protection.

Perhaps the most convincing aspect of the play is the shift in movement and time. The characters start out as children, frightened and hungry, become young adults, trying to be serious about life and end up adults with combed hair, manners and clean overcoats. Leonidik is a mildly successful poet. He is also drunk and nasty. Tatninov deserves credit for shaping the action of the play this closely and well.

However, Tatninov says "shaping [Arbuzov's] characters are the everyday realities of Soviet life, including: the human spirit of survival, boyish fascination with heroism…and the disease called alcoholism…" These forces are not expressed strongly enough.

It seems that these things have more human meanings to them as well: Marat's tales of heroism seem more like attempts at being a hero for Lika. Leonidik's drunken spells and poor health seem like cries to Lika for her love and nurturing, as she had given him before.

But the emotions of the characters never quite play to the height they should. There is one good punch landed between the men and a few satisfying hugs. But there are a lot of moments that needed heightened tension and more elegant gestures, which the actors seemed ready to give.

Here Tatninov should have helped, especially since the play presents a lot of danger for slipping into maudlin sentimentality. Sometimes, if we're not careful, it seems as if the only answer to characters' open-ended questions is the bang of gunfire.

And with dialogue like, "We lost everything in the siege but we found each other. You had no right to leave!" subtler direction might be needed to help avoid sounding overly sentimental. Attention to the subtlety of emotion is vital in order not to seem too obvious.

What we needed to see more of was the characters' wonderful promise, their forced vow never to give up the tenderness and love which they found in their bloody and barren youths. For a New Year's Eve toast, 1959, Marat vows, "never to betray our spring of '42." Leonidik promises, "never to come down to earth." Lika, smart one, looks at them both and remains silent.