Dr Strangelove
Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin
★★★☆☆
An unpredictable Russian leader. An ineffectual US president. An adviser who can’t restrain himself from doing a one-armed Nazi salute. Another convinced fluoridation is poisoning the world...
The far-fetched scenario of Stanley Kubrick’s cold-war satire Dr Strangelove is so familiar to the current political moment that it has the potential to be not very funny at all. But where Kubrick’s film was po-faced in its approach, allowing American terror of potential nuclear war to reach absurdist heights, this stage adaptation by Armando Iannucci and Seán Foley (who also directs) leans into broad physical comedy instead. What can one do in the face of the current global political reality, the writers suggest, but laugh?
Kubrick’s 1964 feature was a tightly constructed 90 minutes; the pair’s script keeps things taut, although they also indulge their love of wordplay and doublespeak, providing a rich vein of verbal humour throughout the pacy drama: General Ripper’s strategies for annihilating the communist threat posed by Russia include “pretaliation”; when faced with certain sudden death, Dr Strangelove, the president’s scientific adviser, who has defected from Germany, urges the Americans to stop being defeatist and channel can-do vibes instead.
Where the play does elaborate on the source material, it’s not because of unnecessary plot twists but to facilitate the transformation of the production’s star, Steve Coogan, who betters Peter Sellers by performing four roles against the three of his screen predecessor.
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Coogan needs no introduction here (nor to a predominantly male audience, who whoop and cheer as soon as he steps on the stage), and the range of roles allows him to showcase the breadth of his comic capacity.
As Captain Mandrake he is stiff-upper-lipped and stiff-limbed, terrified of every tremor as the battle rages outside Camp Burpelson. As Major Kong, riding his torpedo like a rodeo bull, he is the archetypal military hero, pumped up on testosterone and thoughts of his future glory.
As the weak President Muffley he makes less of an impact, perhaps because that character spends so much time in the wings, yielding the floor to Coogan’s Dr Strangelove, the most memorable of his characterisations. Despite his titular status, Strangelove is a shadowy figure in Kubrick’s film. Here he is the star of the show: bespectacled and silver-wigged, nimbly navigating the stage in his wheelchair.
Coogan’s bravura, shape-shifting performance is facilitated by an excellent supporting cast, including Giles Terera as General Turgidson and Tony Jayawardena as the Russian ambassador, Bakov, as well as by Hildegard Bechtler’s set and costumes.
[ ‘Watch your step’: Steve Coogan takes Patrick Freyne backstage at Dr StrangeloveOpens in new window ]
It is unfortunate that the net effect of Iannucci and Foley’s adaptation is so flat. Although the political backdrop of the story needs no update, there was an opportunity to do something more with it, such as interrogate the hypermasculinity of the military world on which the imagined future of humanity depends.
Iannucci and Foley make a small acknowledgment of the grossly gendered world that they have brought to life on stage – and that the characters aspire to in their bunkered future – but they seem happy enough to just entertain the audience rather than challenge it.
Dr Strangelove is at the Bord Gáis Theatre, Dublin, until Saturday, February 22nd
