Salvage (Stoppard, Tom. Coast of Utopia, Pt. 3.)

Rating:
Summary: Herzen's struggle brought to life
Review: Tom Stoppard is arguably the single finest playwright of his generation, and the Coast of Utopia trilogy is a massive undertaking that in the hands of a less skilled author could have gone awry and badly. Stoppard though manages to make what could be a painfully pedantic history lesson into a moving portrayal of love, ideology, loss, and change.

The mess of Alexander Herzen's life, and those of his closest friends and family, is tragic in a really monumental scope. There are no clear places to lay blame, nor clear winners or losers, instead the entire piece is pervaded with a sense of futility (and I don't mean this negatively), Herzen trying vainly to convince his associates that the blood being spilled is of no use, and trying to mend the broken relationships surrounding him.

The history is neither dominate or secondary to the characterization here, rather Stoppard manages to make the historical events we know (or may not know) part and parcel of the volatile and fascinating lives of some of Russias greatest citizens.