“Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812” is a musical almost overflowing with information. Like its name, its contents spill out awkwardly. Through anachronistic ragers, accordions, duels and references to imperial Russian culture — both explained and not — it’s a ride of a show. Put on once before during my time at the University of Michigan in fall 2023 — the last musical staged by the vanished “In the Round” production organization — the School of Music, Theatre & Dance was the latest to tackle the musical April 16-19 at the Power Center.
When “The Great Comet” was on Broadway in the Imperial Theater, set designer Mimi Lien’s renovation seeked to “disorient” the audience. It’s a boisterous show, an electropop opera based on a 67-page excerpt of the Russian classic “War and Peace,” depicting its characters toiling and drinking in the shadow of the Napoleonic Wars. It’s a show with fourth wall breaks starting at the first number. The original Broadway set reflects this — catwalks weave throughout seating arrangements, where ensemble and central performers alike enter the audience, or never leave it. It seems an ensemble member could spill their drink on you at any time. Part of the show’s charm is this overwhelming feeling of potential mishap, and the staging is an essential part of this. It’s hard to replicate without a Broadway budget, and one reason why you don’t find it in community theater.
All this to say, I was nervous when I walked into the Power center and saw a massive black ramp stretching across the back of the stage. There were a few doorways splattered with white paint built into its base, a crescent-shaped catwalk in front of the open orchestra pit and a sparking, spiraled rendition of the titular comet painted into the curve of the floor. Like a shell, the stage seemed to retreat into itself.
Luckily, I can’t say the performances followed in kind. As should be with any “The Great Comet” production, the ensemble was a highlight, even if their attempts at audience immersion were limited to entrances and one half-hearted number in the back half of the show. (Pierre, played steadfastly by Music, Theatre & Dance senior Kevin Ludwig, also appears reading his book in the audience at one point, but the efforts end there.)
Music, Theatre & Dance senior Aliyah Douglas as Natasha, the young and naive heroine, somehow became overearnest, her choking sobbing cutting through the penultimate song in the show and battering what is the role’s most confused and crucial moment. At its best, though, her voice was crisp and clear and her demeanor stubborn, elevating the childish protagonist’s actions to something inevitable, if not understandable, a crucial piece of any portrayal of the ingénue.
Ever shiny in these short-run productions are the one-song characters. Prince Bolkonsky and Princess Mary, played by Music, Theatre & Dance sophomore Charles Reyes and junior Natasha Rodriguez respectively, perfectly bantered through the dark and twisty “The Private and Intimate Life of the House,” settling the audience into the rapid and errant rhythm of the production.
From there we meet Anatole, the synthy, charming villain of the show and, in the hands of Music, Theatre & Dance junior Quincy Hampton, a focus-drawing spectre. His songs, load-bearing numbers like “The Ball,” “Pierre & Anatole” and “Balaga,” were driven by charisma, bleeding through to the audience and lending himself to the central tension of the show — Pierre’s miserly stupor contrasted with his careless joy and Natasha’s coming-of-age in the middle of it all.
Hampton wasn’t immune to that shadowy staircase, however. Every character who embarked up and away drifted further from the audience. Connection, more essential than ever with “The Great Comet,” was severed by the cumbersome and depressed set piece.
Marya Dmitriyevna, played by Music, Theatre & Dance junior Sage Taylor, powerfully and carelessly swept through “In My House,” a number that comes toward the end of the show and is reliant on its pulsing energy. Taylor infused the song with its due wrath — teetering away from grace with some slightly awkward physicality.
At the top of the second half of the show is “Sonya Alone,” a pivotal momentum shift. Music, Theatre & Dance junior Isabella Denissen, playing Sonya, was entirely moving in her execution of the ballad. She wandered across the front of that jutting crescent, bringing the entire house with her. Sonya, at last, earned her place among the central characters. Independent from the looming set, Denissen’s clear and delicate vocals waded through the room, drifting through the air and settled on the crowd.
Denissen, here, seemed to finally break that crucial barrier, generating a thick and teary atmosphere before disappearing within the folds of the show again, faithfully anchoring her quiet but defiant character with the most grounding performance of the entire production, the show’s crucial yet neglected element of connection at last understood in the space left by her striking vocals.
Daily Arts Writer Cora Rolfes can be reached at corolfes@umich.edu.
