Bliss

by Fraser Grace

The water's here, just like us, but soon it'll be flowing past fresh flowers and new grass, and all the way out to the sea. Based on a short story by the brilliant but often overlooked Russian writer Andrey Platonov (1899-1951), Bliss is the tragi-comic tale of a young couple trying to build a life against the odds in the aftermath of the Russian civil war.As ex-soldier Nikita struggles to overcome what we now might recognise as PTSD, the play opens up into a colourful and strangely heart-warming kaleidoscope of stories, song, laughter and magic, as the survivors of years of devastating war and political revolution all strive to comprehend how society can recover from catastrophe, how real love has both passionate and practical faces, and how the future is only built by those who manage to survive their past.This boisterous play is published in Methuen Drama's Lost Plays series, celebrating new plays that had productions postponed due to the Covid-19 outbreak and the global shutdown of theatre spaces.

85 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 26, 2021

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5, rounded up.

This is part of Methuen's 'Lost Plays' series of five works that were due for production, but shut down in light of the pandemic - it's since received a London production, which received mixed reviews. But I felt the script to be solid, and as the Guardian's last line indicates, perhaps it works better on the page than the stage. It seems like a nice companion to Gogol's Dead Souls, or perhaps like an early minor Chekhov.

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/202...
https://closeupculture.com/2022/06/02...