Summerfolk review: A stunning ensemble bring Gorky’s satire to life

This sumptuous, bittersweet slice of turn-of-the-20th-century Russian life is just the sort of thing the Olivier stage was built for. Director Robert Hastie has assembled a stunning acting ensemble, bringing shade and texture to Maxim Gorky’s 1904 skewering of a feckless educated class, caught between Tsarism and the coming upheavals. Their travails are agony to them, hilarious to us, and it all unfolds on a gorgeous set by Peter McKintosh where the sun-bleached ribs of a summer dacha give way to a dappled, forested stream.