Reduced to its component parts, Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812 looks like an experiment in perversity. Here, adapter/composer Dave Malloy seems to have told himself, see if you can make an engaging entertainment out of this: (1) Pull a storyline from Leo Tolstoy's massive 1869 novel, War and Peace, then (2) retell it in operatic style—but (3) don't perform it in an opera house or even in a conventional theater.… [ Read more ]