The week before I saw Playhouse on the Square’s regional debut of Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, I was asked what the play was about. I wasn’t quite sure, having deliberately avoided finding out beforehand, as is sometimes my practice when seeing a show I’m unfamiliar with. This continued until the morning I was to attend, when a coworker read aloud a short synopsis. The words “electropop,” “opera,” and “Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace” gave me the impression it had the potential to be either really cool or a complete disaster. I’ll tell you now: It was utterly insane, and I loved it.
Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 is a sung-through musical; there is no spoken dialogue. Everything is performed in song, which can be a lot to take in for the average theatergoer. Coupled with the fact that it’s is an adaptation of Part 8 of War and Peace, you might be forgiven in expecting the effect to be too much. Instead, the show leans into its own weirdness, breaking the fourth wall before the action even begins. Performers enter through the lobby, where they mingle with the audience before the show. Almost immediately the musical makes fun of itself; in the first number, the company scatters additional programs containing a family tree with notes about each character, such as “eccentric” and “slut” (it’s tongue-in-cheek, don’t worry). The actors warn to pay attention because everybody has, like, eight names.
The set design feels like a cast member in its own right. Throughout the show, the ensemble performs in and around the audience, entering from the back of the auditorium and moving toward to stage, or utilizing the half-moon runway that goes from downstage out into the rows. A staircase curves artfully up from stage left to the balcony overhead. Scenic designer Phillip Hughen created something that lends itself to the spectacle called for by the script and also feels incredibly intimate, as if the audience were peering into the secret back room of a speakeasy or brothel.
Another unique aspect is the live music performed by an orchestra half-hidden by velvet curtains nestled upstage. The music is wild, ranging from moving operatic solos to a bouncing bass-heavy rave. At one point, the characters attend an opera-within-the-opera, which can only be described as delightfully bizarre. The note I jotted down reads, “Holy shit. This is hot.”
I’m refraining from going over the broad strokes — such as the plot — if only because I was so enamored with the details. Every actor, from the leads to the individuals of the ensemble, brought such an energy that everywhere you looked there was something interesting going on — which is an accomplishment in a musical this busy. Dave Malloy has written a play scattered with poignant vignettes. One such moment especially stood out, during a song in which an old man repeatedly asks, “Where are my glasses?” only for his daughter to remark that they are on top of his head. She then says quietly, “I disgust myself,” a moment I found incredibly relatable (from both perspectives).
While Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 probably isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, I found it a fully immersive escape from reality and a complete theater success.
Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 runs at Playhouse on the Square through May 21st.
Photo courtesy of Circuit Playhouse, Inc. 
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