Word: natasha
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...dominant personality trait is the willingness to gamble. Ballerina Assoluta Natalia Makarova, who now makes about $300,000 a year from her dancing, took a great risk in defecting from the Kirov Ballet to perform in the alien world of Western ballet. But then Natasha, 36, has always been supremely confident of her talent. Recalling an old Russian proverb, she observes: "It is bad soldier who does not expect to be general...
...adaptation, first performed in 1955 in Berlin, must be released in a series of stunning special effects simulating the horrors of war from above. The peculiar predicament of characters adhering fiercely to free choice in a determined world--of Andrei, Prince Bolkonski who gets sucked into the wars, of Natasha Rostova, his young fiancee who does not manage to remain faithful, of the Bolkonski serfs who incite an abortive revolt--all positioned so carefully in the novel, collapse beneath the weight of the simplistic anti-war statement of the play...
...contrast, Linda Kirwan's Natasha longs to break from her bounds. While Kirwan's impetuosity seems appropriate for the romantic 17-year old girl she is at the beginning, her emotions are too wild for the older, sincerely repentant woman who later begs Andrei for forgiveness...
...other actors skillfully manipulate their minor roles with characteristic panache. Sarah McClusky's bubbling Countess Rostova is particularly entertaining as is Tom Myers'' self-important Napoleon Bonaparte. Chris Clemenson squeezes the wisdom of General Kutuzov from a wonderfully wizened frame. And John Blazo as the soldier Kuragin easily seduces Natasha with a slickness worthy of the serpent in the garden...
...real reason for the disintegration that sets in after Borodino is that history is being made too fast. Jumping from the battlefield to Andrei's death to Natasha's marriage with Pierre, the play loses its sense of drama and becomes a mere chronicle of events. Once more the audience is left wondering with Pierre "What does this all mean?" By the end of War and Peace, despite the valiant struggle of the director and cast, only the historian knows for sure...