Hated NightfallSeventy years after the murder in 1918 of the Russian Imperial Family at the hands of the Bolsheviks, their remains were offcially discovered in the woods near Ekaterinburg. Alongside them lay two additional unidentified human bodies...
The Doorman of our Century. Me. Great moments of human endeavour stimulate
a sort of poetry ... the mundane minds of lawyers are shaken from the
attics to the basement... earthquakes of phraseology... the sudden
discovery of THE STYLE OF ROME... He was - you could feel it through
the crackling of the telephone, through snow and hail and regiments of
rocket launchers, saboteurs, air raids, you name it, it was conspiring
to spoil the moment but he was not thrown, he knew this message called
for the poise and ponderous delivery of never-to-be-forgotten syllables,
a compromise between electrification and the oratorial manner of the late
republic, Cato, Mirabeau, oh the competition, but he persevered, and it
was excellent in many ways, I don't criticise, YES HE SAYS...
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Taking this as a starting point, Hated Nightfall is Howard Barker’s
bold speculation on one of history’s greatest secrets; an imaginative
recreation of the last hours of the Romanoffs, a doomed family caught
in the chaos of civil war. Trapped in the hands of its enemies, a Royal
Family, argues and barters for its life, but with a man who appears to be
both saint and sadist. Dancer, the former tutor of the Royal children,
is now an agent of the revolution invited by Lenin himself to oversee the
execution, but compelled by an elusive mission of his own.
Hated Nightfall contains classic Barker themes; a lyrical,
passionate study of innocence, sexuality and sophistication
in the midst of turmoil.