Gambling is an addiction - for people who watch others doing it as much as for the participants themselves; hence the enduring appeal of Gogol's play and of modern equivalents such as Mamet's "House of Games". This 1843 tale is of three professions gamblers in provincial Russia who join forces with the eager Ikharev in order to dupe a green and wealthy young Hussar, Glob.
Somehow you expect that the tale will unfold at breakneck speed, using theatrical sleight of hand to dazzle the audience, just as the gamblers' swiftness baffles their patsy. In fact Dalia Ibelhauptaite's masterly production deals its hand with measured confidence, and so the play becomes less a madcap caper and more a dark, almost macabre dance around themes of deception and self delusion.
The setting is a carriage park at night, sumptuously realised in Oleg Sheintsis' design. Large, hooded carriages dominate the stage, and in their darkest recesses lounge the gamblers; Sauerkraut (Peter Silverleaf), Slipper (Phil Daniels making the most of his laconic charm and raspy voice, adapting knife-throwing skills learned for "The Cosing Number" to fire showers of cards around the theatre) and Our Lady, the brains behind the team, played as a tense, brooding American with a gastric ulcer in a highly mannered performance from Mark Rylance.
The Russian actor Oleg Menshikov makes his English-speaking debut (he only spoke Russian in "When She Danced", but shill won an Olivier Award for it) as Ikharev, a flamboyant and dandyish fellow whose greatest asset is a specialised deck which he calls Anna Candelabra, personified as a lady luck figure (Fuschia Peters), who rides in the carriage of whoever is winning "Personally, I don't want more money than it would take to run a modest war," proclaims Ikharev grandly as the champagne flows and his delirium grows, Menshikov's performance becomes more and more extravagant as the plot unfolds, and by the end of the play he is overdoing it outrageously, magnificently.
This is the best of European theatre traditions meeting the best of British. Chris Hannan's translation is provocative and spry but not distractingly so, and Ibelhauptaite finds bold and aesthetic solutions for every scene. The fleecing of young Glob sees him bombarded with cards in a quazi-sexual frenzy which leaves all players panting for breath. A winner.

Submitted by Jane Grey