A Daring Play about Ex-Soviet Immigrants

Celebrating a World Premiere

The Natural Horse is a world premiere production written by T. Adamson, now playing at Alleyway Theatre.

At the final preview performance Mr. Adamson and Director Robyn Lee Horn hosted a talk-back in which Mr. Adamson explained that his inspiration for the play was from folk tales of Eastern Europe and Russia that are imaginative and somewhat childish, like moments out of a picture book.

The play centers around the Karenina family in Racine, Wisconsin in 2010. An on-the-edge immigrant family from Russia with two children and one on the way, they have struggled to fit in with their community and with each other, and are conflicted about what to do with their talking horse.

Mother Svetka is played with a great deal of Russian anger, which can quickly turn to tenderness, by Aleks Malejs. Father Anton is played with a great deal of Russian world-weariness by Philip Farugia, who also does a turn as the front of the horse. Christine Turturro hits all the right notes as teenage daughter/almost a woman, Masha. The younger daughter, Lil Gemini, played by Annette Daniels Taylor, is a precocious screeching nightmare of a child. Rounding out the cast are Yamilex Holguin Perez as Masha’s friend Charlotte, who never seems to really inhabit the role, and Todd Benzin in a comic role as the loud-mouth potential horse-buyer, as well as the front of the horse. Ms. Perez brings up the rear.

the Struggles of Assimilation

The play unfolds in a series of vignettes introduced by what sounds like a babushka speaking Russian (Vera Kuperman). English subtitles translate for her, a charming device that works very well.

The catalyst for the action on stage is a talking horse brought home by Masha. Named Goodboy, Svetka takes exception to his presence and wants to sell him, as horses should not be living in houses. The rest of the family want to keep him. In the vignettes, we come to know each family member, their hopes and dreams, and their demons.

There are some clever comic moments, often centering around Goodboy’s bodily functions and, er, stallion-like propensities. The scene in which a feathered creature sprinkles snow over Masha and Charlotte has an ethereal quality that is quite compelling.

Lengthy monologues, particularly by the ever-screeching Lil Gemini (less is more when it comes to obnoxious children), and Goodboy in relating a dream were over-the-top, and for the most part, incomprehensible. At 110 minutes with no intermission, the play feels very long. The story itself, a family drama with supernatural overtones, is an engaging one, as in the dynamics between the parents and the struggles of the teenage daughter with her sexuality and her future. The snow scene and references to mythological creatures, such as the foxes, add to the otherworldliness and charm of the play. Trimmed down to 70 or 80 minutes, the play could maintain all those elements without the excesses that cause it to falter.