If you want to be angry with Leo Tolstoy's “Anna Karenina”, one of the most famous, extensive and influential novels in world literature, you simply see it as a soap opera.

Finally, he covers the common themes: adultery and infidelities, uptight lovers and frustrated wives, couples and families all entangled.

The novel only does this on the surface, the human element keeps the reader engaged, while underneath and next to it all the themes of contemporary Russia at the end of the 19th century are dealt with.

If you want to break down the 1000-page epic into a three-hour theater evening, you have to decide whether you want to concentrate on the love drama of the unfortunate title character or on the social panorama.

But whoever, like Alexander Nerlich at the Staatstheater Mainz, wants to present a bit of everything, who sketches out all the stories and wants to convey in short episodes what the main characters are up to, not only gets into shallow waters, but also offers the viewer no common thread that connects many loose ends.

Promising staging at the beginning

The staging on Thea Hoffmann-Axthelm's open stage begins promisingly.

A partition illuminated from the inside is rotated by the actors at will: each rotation a change of scene, sometimes Moscow, sometimes Saint Petersburg, sometimes one of the many estates of the noble protagonists.

A train ride is simulated with flying shadows, steam is added for the destiny of the train station, and the man who was initially run over by the train appears as a revenant and messenger of death to threatening music (Leif Eric Young).

In doing so, suggestive images succeed again and again, which often reveal more about the inner state of the characters than the dialogues.

The choreographic ideas (Cecilia Wretemar-Hauck, Jasmin Hauck) – parades with strange contortions – allow a deep look into the mental state of the Oblonskijs, Levins and Karenins.

What fails the staging, despite all the attention to detail and variety of ideas, is the misunderstanding that topics such as love, the search for happiness and the longing for a meaningful life can be translated seamlessly and independently of time.

What the psychological realist Tolstoy set the standard for was the indissoluble interpenetration of psyche and society.

"Anna Karenina" tells of the impossibility of individual happiness under the prevailing conventions of society.

Anna doesn't fail because of an evil outside, she fails because she herself is no different inside.

Alexander Nerlich ignores this psychosocial dimension and lets his staff deal with each other in couple therapy slang.

Feelings are "repaired", you "profess" your love or not, you constantly reflect on your inner life.

“Are you really stupid?!” Anna smashes at her cold-hearted husband.

If you can talk to each other so openly and freely, you don't really have to throw yourself in front of the train.

He doesn't get to the heart of the story

From the first moment you can see that the melancholically shadowed Anna Karenina (Kruna Savić) is not going to end well with her.

Her easy-going brother Stepan "Stiva" Oblonskij (Johannes Schmidt) is the complete opposite and, unlike most other characters, is allowed to show at least the beginnings of personality development.

His wife Dolly (Katharina Uhland) is little more than a supporting character, as is her sister Kitty (Johanna Engel) and her future husband Kostja (Carl Grübel).

Compared to a self-contained, confident patriarch like Alexej Karenin (Martin Herrmann), a reckless knight of fortune like Count Wronsky (Orlando Klaus) looks pretty pale;

Even with him you can see at first glance that you can't rely on him.

The many coherent, often hauntingly played individual scenes cannot distract from the question of the end to which Alexander Nerlich is staging the family and social epic "Anna Karenina" if the historical, moral, psychosocial connotations interest him only marginally.

He serves up the plot effectively, but doesn't get to the heart of the story.

"Anna Karenina" at the Staatstheater Mainz, next performances on December 4th and 28th.