‘I feel like, soon, the day after tomorrow, some other people are going to come, a strong, bold race, and sweep us off the face of the earth like litter.’
It’s a hot, beautiful summer in 1905, and Russia’s elite retreats to the countryside to swim, sip champagne and start affairs.
When you’re having this much fun, why care about anything else? But Vavara can’t shake the feeling that they’re living on stolen time. How long can they go on ignoring the storm that’s gathering on the horizon?
A razor-sharp portrait of class, privilege and denial, Summerfolk was written by Maxim Gorky in 1904. This adaptation by Nina Raine and Moses Raine premiered at the National Theatre, London, in 2026, directed by Robert Hastie.
‘Glorious… a bona fide hit… both touching and extremely funny… a play that blends laughter with tears’
— The Times
‘Stunning… sumptuous… a bittersweet slice of turn-of-the-20th-century Russian life… brings shade and texture to Maxim Gorky’s skewering of a feckless educated class, caught between Tsarism and the coming upheavals… Gorky’s script has been given an idiosyncratic and often ribald updating that is hugely entertaining… pure pleasure’
— London Standard
‘Terrific… quotably funny… laced with a timely sense of collective dread’
— Telegraph
‘Strikingly modern… Gorky was writing in the shadow of Chekhov but these characters are rougher, more honest, maybe more real than anything you’ll find in The Cherry Orchard‘
— Independent
‘Brilliant… a pithy adaption of a play that literally picks up where Chekhov’s masterpiece left off… the Raine siblings have provided a contemporary translation full of humour and vigour… Gorky’s play speaks loudly to our careless times’
— WhatsOnStage
‘A modern, witty and bracingly pungent adaptation’
— Time Out
‘A play for today’
— Financial Times
