NEW YORK — A strongman doesn’t simply spring to power but is elevated by the forces of his time. The rise of Vladimir Putin, from a deputy mayor who still drives his parents’ car to de facto Russian dictator, is the most salient narrative thread in “Patriots,” which opens on Broadway on Monday night. But the drama onstage at the Barrymore Theatre targets a less notorious figure: the blustering oligarch who plucked Putin from obscurity.
It proves tough territory to conquer, despite the Sturm und Drang of this staging by Almeida artistic director Rupert Goold . Morgan’s choice to focus on Berezovsky, a pivotal figure in shaping post-Soviet Russia , is a promising one. But “Patriots” suffers from a slipperiness of both focus and scale, dramatizing historical incidents and backroom deals while only thinly sketching the characters behind them.
Stuhlbarg gives Berezovsky a stormy and gesticulating wittiness, but there is little more than pure avarice behind his actions — from striking a deal with ascendant oil mogul Roman Abramovich to selecting an in-pocket replacement for Boris Yeltsin . Berezovsky’s allegiance to democracy is entirely bound to his capitalist exploits, so an eventual fallout with his protégé on principle is tough to swallow.
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