Rare Chekhovian treat

TOVA KORNFELD

There aren’t too many opportunities in Vancouver to see the plays of Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright and father of the modern short story. United Players, the little theatre company that could, remedies this by presenting Jewish playwright Sir Tom Stoppard’s 2008 adaptation of Ivanov, Chekhov’s first play, at its funky Jericho Beach site.

Chekhov wrote the comic melodrama at the age of 27 while in medical school. Unhappy with the play after its Moscow debut, he made revisions and it reopened in St. Petersburg in 1889, in the form we know today. It is this seminal work that sowed the seeds for his subsequent masterpieces. The play has been characterized by some critics as “the runt of the litter,” compared to his later great works, Uncle Vanya, The Seagull, The Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. However, Stoppard’s rewrite has been dubbed, “a richly intelligent rethink of a play blessed with a combination of sharp wit and sympathetic humanity.”

The story reverberates with the ethical decay and moral corruption of the bored, self-absorbed Russian leisure class, a world of idleness, gossip and vodka. It showcases the psychological portrait of a man whose inner conflicts are on a collision course with the external powers of everyday life.

The eponymous protagonist, Nickolay Alekseevich Ivanov, is a member of the landed gentry who, at 35, is experiencing a mid-life crisis. He is a moody, self-loathing, complex character – a Russian Hamlet. Married to a beautiful Jewish woman from a wealthy family who converted to Russian orthodoxy to marry, she is disowned by her family and loses her dowry, much to the chagrin of her husband. He then must deal with her life-threatening tuberculosis, his loss of love for her, his mounting debts and the boredom of life.

Ivanov escapes this ennui every evening by visiting his neighbors, the Lebedevs, for cards and vodka, leaving his wife behind. However, he owes the miserly Mrs. Lebedev 900 rubles and cannot pay. At the house, the Lebedev’s 20-year-old daughter, Sasha, becomes enamored of Ivanov and begins a dangerous flirtation. Ivanov is torn between doing what is right and following his heart, and begins to question his very existence. At one point he tells Sasha that he has “turned into a hangdog parody of a literary cliché, the superfluous man.”

We glimpse another view of his turmoil when Mr. Lebedev, in a moment of kindness, slips him 900 rubles so that Ivanov can repay his wife. A long pause follows as Ivanov stares mournfully at his neighbor, as if to say, “How could you shame me?”

The second act ends with a party at the Lebedevs’, with real fireworks in the backyard and intimate fireworks in the garden, as Ivanov and Sasha passionately embrace just as Anna walks in. Anna faints. Eventually, deep in turmoil, Ivanov commits suicide.

Throughout the play, there are references to the “Jewess” wife, and the audience can feel the gentry’s disapproval of Ivanov’s choice, a dark undertone reflective of the attitude towards Jews in Russia in the 1880s, a time ripe with pogroms.

The strength of this production is that comedic and tragic aspects come together effortlessly. Noel Johansen is a handsome Ivanov and performs his role with great style. The audience can feel his pain as he moves though various emotions. Olesia Shewchuk plays the young Sasha perfectly, a mix of youthful impetuosity and fiery passion. Tamara McCarthy poignantly plays the dying Jewish wife, Anna. Dave Campbell is strong as the doting father, Pavel Lebedev, and Christine Iannetta nails the shrewish wife.

The set has a contemporary edge, sleek and minimalist in monochromatic grey. Suspended above the stage is a series of grey tree branches, a metaphor for Ivanov’s suffocating sense of entrapment in his gloomy, provincial life. Stylish period costuming establishes the historical context. The staging of the play is unique, with Ivanov’s tragic suicide shown right at the beginning. We then journey back for two and a half hours to find out how this situation came to be. At the end, the suicide scene is repeated verbatim, to very powerful effect.

Ivanov runs until Feb. 14, at the Jericho Arts Centre at the foot of Discovery Street. For details, call 604-224-8007 or visit unitedplayers.com.

Tova Kornfeld is a local writer and lawyer.

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