Summerfolk

Maxim Gorky's potent naturalistic masterpiece shows a diverse group of Russians meeting, as they do every year, at their summer holiday retreat. Some are frightened at the prospect of change, some are angry and some yearn for a new life. As they question the value of their work, their art and leisure, they're shocked by the responses their disputes reveal. Relationships break under the strain, and scandals of business and infidelity are laid bare. Nick Dear's version premiered at the Oliver Theatre at the Royal National Theatre in Septrember 1999.