Life and Fate, Theatre Royal Haymarket, London, review: Maly Drama Theatre stage 'the 20th century's War and Peace'

The renowned Russian theatre company adapt Vasily Grossman's epic 1960 novel, which was suppressed by the KGB

Tatiana Shestakova and Igor Ivanov in 'Life and Fate' (Maly Drama Theatre)

The renowned Maly Drama Theatre of St Petersburg hasn't visited these shores in over a decade. They are certainly making up for lost time now with this UK premiere of their extraordinarily powerful 2007 stage adaptation of Vasily Grossman's epic novel.

Grossman was a Soviet Jewish journalist who covered the battle of Stalingrad and the liberation of the Treblinka extermination camp. Life and Fate is the 20th century's War and Peace. When the author submitted it for publication in 1960, the KGB came down on it hard, destroying even Grossman's carbon paper and typewriter ribbons. He died in 1964, having been told that the novel was not fit to be read for another 200 years.

Happily, a microfilmed copy of the manuscript was smuggled abroad. A translation was first published in Switzerland in 1980 and, following Glasnost, an edited version eventually appeared in Russia eight years later.

Director Lev Dodin's mighty theatrical treatment foregrounds what most affronted the Soviet authorities. For Grossman, the totalitarianism of Hitler and of Stalin were horribly equivalent, as was their antisemitism. He valued the individual, random act of kindness and abominated any philosophy of 'Universal Good' that justified the means by the end.

A volleyball net bisects the stage diagonally, a barrier that can be the necessary feature of an innocent game or double as the wire perimeter fence of a German death camp or Soviet gulag: ghostly faces under snow; lineups of men forced to quick march round the set and sing. The uniforms may alternate but there's a dreadful interchangeability about this recurring image.

Sergey Kuryshev gives a masterly performance as Viktor Shtrum, the nuclear scientist at the centre of the proceedings. He has been ostracised for having a Jewish mother and for theoretical work that “contradicts the Leninist theory of matter”. He's just agonising over whether to resign from the academy of sciences or “repent” when he receives a surprise supportive phone call from Stalin (who needs his nuclear expertise).

The effect on this gloomy, guarded man is hilarious and worrying as he gradually thaws out to his apparent luck. In dazed disbelief, he can't stop repeating Stalin's praise: “I wish you success in your work.” He dances round the flat, flings off his pyjamas, whisks his wife to bed. He refuses to anticipate the worse trouble in store for him as what Stalin requires of his approved intellectuals becomes apparent.

Scenes and locations bleed into one another, intensifying the atmosphere of insecurity.You can't be too careful in this precarious world where just one little slip can blow your cover as a supposed conformist and land you within an inch of liquidation. Lines about, say, rival ideologies being equated through the driving force of nationalism ring out with a disturbing topicality. It's a show that runs the gamut from fierce, barking-mad comedy to inexpressible pathos.

It's bound together by Anna Shtrum's piercing farewell letter to her son Viktor as she is captured by the Germans and herded to her death. Speaking to both him and us from beyond the grave, she's played with a gentle raptness by the superb Tatiana Shestakova. This actress has spent three decades with the Maly, a company whose intensity of preparation (Life and Fate took three years to rehearse) and spiritual cohesion as an ensemble are richly vindicated by this indelible production.

In rep until 20 May (trh.co.uk)