NT Young Chekhov

Jul 30, 2016 21:24:06 GMT David J said:

I thought maybe it's because the first two I saw, the Anya Reiss version and that Regents Park one with the overhead mirror and Hans Zimmer-esque music blasting out every now and then, just detracted from the play. Having seen this version at Chichester, the most naturalistic of the three, I've come to the conclusion that this is a play about people with problems that is just not for me.

I loved the Regent’s Park Seagull. It captured the preening, posturing pretention of the protagonists perfectly – can Janie Dee play a flibbertigibbet or what? – whilst the open air theatre naturally drew constant comparisons to Konstantin’s ‘new kind of’ outside theatre from act one, a comparison which Dunster and Betts ran with, making their Seagull a subtly subversive version and positioning Chekhov’s theatrical progressiveness alongside Konstantin’s (and Betts’ rewrite of Konstantin’s play pulled no punches in mocking his pretention, so already this interpretation was laced with irony). That mirror was an excellent example of a very simple piece of scenery very effectively making a very big difference throughout (the best example would obviously be Ivo van Hove’s simple illuminated box, his Miller Corner); here it allowed the drama to chug on naturalistically on the ground, but then gave proceedings the cinematic airy-fairy airs of Sophia Coppola, or the photographic beauty of even something rather fantastical like the Cottingley Fairies, as well as its own unique floaty quality, drawing out organic beauty in ordinary conversations, all whilst enhancing the point about new theatre, old theatre, pretentious theatre and all that. The little other modernities – the Hans Zimmer blasts, the pre-recorded voiceover – just added to this traditional/modern, real/theatrical, naturalistic/beautified, Trigorin/Konstantin dichotomy. And I thought Betts’ version was very witty, very successfully updated and, occasionally, very new (notably that new last line). I thought it tremendous stuff. And, crucially, actually funny. Loved it.

Anywho, now that absolutely necessary blast from the past is over, watch as I pretend to know what I’m talking about when talking about Russian theatre in a thread where we have an actual Russian correspondent... Incidentally, RUmbledoll, I'm loving all the insights into how Russians do Chekhov/Microsoft and am trying to hold off from getting overly nerdy/nosey asking a hundred questions about Chekhov and theatre in Russia (one quickly – is he taught in school in Russia like Shakespeare is here?), but the one question I really HAVE to ask now is, from your avatar (presumably not you, although if it is...), is Bob Dylan actually big in Russia?

I’d absolutely agree, before I ramble on, that Chekhov is the second greatest playwright after Anya Reiss Shakespeare. To quote Tolstoy to Chekhov, “I can’t stand Shakespeare, but your plays are worse than his”. In fact, personally, I might prefer Anton to Bill.

I saw these in Chichester and liked them well enough. Four stars, I’d say, for the whole day’s energy; relatively, though, I’d say four for Platonov, four for Ivanov, and three for The Seagull, which unsatisfactorily wraps up an otherwise much better if not unproblematic day. As individual versions, the first two have much merit and I’d recommend both individually as good theatre. As a whole day, you can’t help but be swept up with the energy, though how you like eleven hours of Chekhov is wholly dependent on how much you like one hour of Chekhov, so the marathon won’t be for everyone (e.g. I couldn’t stand In The Vale of Health, merely because I can only stomach so much Simon Gray in one day, and four solid solo plays – enjoyable in isolation – became an endurance test consecutively, eleven hours of anyone can be tiresome to some). As an intellectual exercise, I think they make a strong claim that Chekhov the writer was as talented at 18 as he was at 44 (this book does too); I don’t think, however, they make any claim that Chekhov the theatremaker was as talented at 18 as he was at 44 – a more interesting claim – and the fault there lies not with imperfect Chekhov but with overcareful Hare and Kent.

Starting at the end, The Seagull was the worst by a long way, because it suffered what I felt The Master Builder suffered from – translation-itis. There was a line in Hare’s Master Builder which went something like “And what else is there about me that you find attractive?”. There were others like it too, that one sticks in the memory more. It was a line that jarred, one of those awful moments where you’re aware you’re hearing a translation, as the stuffy vocabulary and iffy sentence structure sounds a little too babelfish.com-y – a little too word-by-word literal-translated. His Seagull suffered so too. Too many lines weren’t well suited to dialogue. Amidst other lines I can’t remember now, the bloody frigging bloody frigging swears in The Seagull just did not work, they sounded like Sir David Hare’s uncomfortable concession to modernity, like Sir David Hare trying to rap or play Pokemon Go and keep up with the youthful Bettses and Donneleys and even Reisses, the other modern Seagull updaters whose swearing was successful. Beyond that there was a certain discomfort to it, a certain tension between Sir David Hare the academic translator and Sir David Hare trying to emulate a young satirist, which led to uncomfortably over-verbose language mixed with weird swearing and inconsistent modernities. Anna Chancellor would make a wonderful Arkadina in a better script. My criticisms of Ivanov and PLatonov are slightly personal, slightly fatuous and slightly redundant as I’d recommend both of those shows for much I admire in them. My criticisms of The Seagull are because it’s not a very good version of The Seagull, well acted though it may be. And, crucially, not funny. Three stars, one for Chancellor, one for James and one for Vinall, none for Hare.

Ivanov was good, and writing it up now makes me realise just how good it was. Kent made the first few scenes unbearably overcast with the dark clouds of depression, making us unable to see Ivanov’s townspeople as anything but unwanted interlopers, making the flippancy of their dialogue seem positively immoral next to the grief of the world – due to depression, boring dialogue becomes positively Hitchcockian in how it’s hiding true emotional distress, and for that Kent deserves much applause. The card-playing scene was horrible and lonely for this reason. As a tonal evocation of depression I was amazed by the full-on first two acts. It lost some steam after that, and by being so focused on Ivanov’s own overcast outlook we lost the chance to really get into the heads of Chekhov’s comprehensive and well-constructed supporting cast: this sidelined Nina Sosanya in a way Grandage/Stoppard never sidelined McKee (her again, always wonderful), but the biggest tragedy was Dr Lvov, who baby Tom Hiddleston played with slimy duplicity and self-righteousness, where here James Mcardle lacked the chance to show the second of Lvov’s two faces due to Kent’s Ivanov-centric direction. Not much point saying Sam West was very good as it’s now Geoffrey Streatfield (an actor who is always very good), but Sam West was, indeed, very good.

Platonov was a blistering performance by James Mcardle and a superb supporting cast (esp. Olivia Vinall and the always wonderfully sympathetic Nina Sosanya), marred by MOR direction. Now, the worst thing you can do when talking about a play is merely compare it to previous productions and not judge it on its own merits, but sod it. Three years ago a stunning piece of punk theatre was made from Chekhov’s first play (apparently Platonov was played by Jack Laskey, who I’ve since effused about in Lawrence After Arabia, there he had a real sad bravado, turns out I’m a big Laskey fan): Helena Kaut-Howson’s Sons Without Fathers brought the energy and vitality of a rock concert to the tale of a washed up rock star that PLatonov is (well, that is if you think doctors are rock stars, and given Chekhov wrote this as a teenage medical student, I’m willing to psychoanalyse and say that’s what he thought of junior doctors (and frankly, junior doctors are rock stars)). That show and Laskey’s performance had the bravado and energy and spunk of a showy-offy young man which suited the flawed script wonderfully, what with the script’s flaws being too much of a young man showing off. Here Hare handles it like a bus-pass-holding knight-of-the-realm wearing the white gloves of a historian. So I suppose not enough of Sir David Hare’s spunk. Perhaps I’ll forgive it that. His script, though, had a politeness and a formality that doesn’t do justice to the debauchery Chekhov indulges in, making a ‘well made play’ of a script that’s anything but. Kent, though, makes a museum piece of it too by behaving carefully and treating it with the over-reverence which hampered Lindsay Posner’s Vanya – it was slow, well-staged, politely ordered and sleek, and by staking such a claim for its worth as a piece of literature they rather forget its energy as a piece of theatre (Michael Frayn does both, incidentally, so Hampstead’s Wild Honey is probably a hot ticket if casting is good (bring back Laskey)). This show IS a wonderful well-made play, admittedly, but I think there's an edge to the manuscript which warrants a risk Hare wasn't willing to take. There was a real politeness to both the character of Platonov and the feel of Kent’s Platonov which meant I never felt the narrative’s excitement or sexiness, nor believed the narrative’s contrivances, wonderful though Mcardle and the women were.

And just this May, Dead Centre brought Chekhov’s First Play to Bristol, which uses the unfinished manuscript as a springboard to make damning, vital and biting observations (in only about 70 minutes, no less) about what we bring to the theatre and what theatre gives back to us, and much else besides. It was one of this year’s best pieces of theatre. Shame you can’t see it. Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah (though in all sincerity, did anyone see Chekhov’s First Play in Bristol, Ireland or internationally, and if so do you share my immense admiration for it?).

I’ve been agnostic about Olivia Vinall in the past, but she comes out of this trilogy a conquering hero. Her three performances are three separate triumphs, and to see her evoke three separate types of hurt and loneliness one day is really something.

There’s an awful lot to admire in the trilogy, not least the actors who tick off all three, and the very convincing literary claim that Chekhov’s early plays are early masterpieces. Perhaps I was a bit put off by rather bad seats in Chichester, or a bad memory since last November, or a bad The Seagull wrapping up an otherwise very good day. I’d absolutely recommend these. I just wish that the eleven hour extravaganza had the bravado of an arrogant young student, or the reckless ambition of a playwright thinking he was finished. According to the programme and press material, one reason for these revivals was to prove that young Chekhov’s writing deserves the same literary attention, appreciation and criticism as the Chekhov of those final three masterpieces. As someone who studied Chekhov, my answer is “Well, duh”. As a theatregoer, I think Kent and Hare absolutely make that literary claim, but I think that in doing so they fail to make that theatrical claim, sacrificing some theatrical daring and, more damningly, some theatrical vivacity for the sake of well-made well-done well-intentioned intellectual points. Platonov is an eight hour risk, Ivanov is a haunting depiction of depression, and The Seagull is a theatrical cry to rally forwards; here Platonov was a very good but very safe well-made-play, Ivanov was a very good haunting depiction of depression, and The Seagull was a bit of a botch job. What makes all Chekhov genius is his lifelong subtle innovation and his huge humanistic heart; what makes Young Chekhov exciting is that those elements were filtered through his early satiric eye and a lack of inhibitions from the follies of youth.  Sadly Hare and Kent turn Young Chekhov into 156-Year-Old Chekhov, Platonov now the contemporary of The Moderate Soprano. As such, whilst it’s an entertaining, moving eleven hours of theatre (or eight hours, followed by The Seagull), it doesn’t zing with the passion or the identity that something as theatrically intense, individual and focused as, say, Icke’s Vanya, or Herrin’s Vanya, or Mitchell’s Cherry Orchard, or those other aforementioned Chekhov triumphs. Those were theatrical. This was intellectual. There’s the rub. Much to admire, much to move, much to like, but oh how I wish it had risk, provocation, impoliteness, youth. That would have pushed this from “Very Good But Not Unproblematic” to “Essential Intellectually, Essential Emotionally”. That might be less true to Old Hare, but that would be much much truer to Young Chekhov.

Still, four stars! Four over-polite and over-intellectual stars, but four well-acted well-deserved stars nonetheless! Bugbears are more to write than praise. I’m an arse sometimes. Well done to all concerned.

Quick intellectual addendum: if this really wanted to get to grips with Young Chekhov, it would feature The Wood Demon, his third play and great anomaly. I always wish that someone would eventually try and find the merit in it: the only Chekhov I’m yet to see and the only bad play Chekhov wrote, and it’s BAAAAAAAAAD... It’s the slapstick Uncle Vanya down to Vanya’s slapstick suicide, complete with act three’s property talk intact – and as well as having too many characters, being too morally black and white and obvious, making Vanya a figure of fun and then actually having Vanya shoot himself only for everyone to move on immediately (spoiler), the jokes just aren’t funny. I say all this believing it to be terrible literature, but possibly an edit, or an ironic touch, or a sensitive touch may find the good in it. Had Hare and Kent tried this, they may have made it funny or humanistic or half-decent, and THAT would prove something theatrical and new about Young Chekhov. Regardless, I know Trevor Nunn once wanted to do it, and whilst he’s a variable director I’d love to know what he finds exciting in it. Given her teenage bastardisations of the great man’s great work, for once I think Anya Reiss would do a good job with this lesser effort. I think I say this every time I see any Chekhov. In fact, has anyone seen any production of The Wood Demon, and is it as bad as I fear?

P.S. Former Ivanov Sam West recently narrated a wonderful podcast called Borders: An Odyssey, which is possibly the best piece of new literature I’ve encountered all year: a sprawling Sebaldian epic retelling of refuge which is sweet in its classicism, comprehensive in its scope and vital in its political modernity – do hunt it down, brilliant stuff. Also West was just behind me at The Flick and has a lovely belly laugh, clearly enjoyed that.

P.P.S. Incidentally, I like Joshua James a lot – here his Konstantin was a sensitive soul, Here We Go was a mini-masterpiece, his Ferdinand in The Tempest was very touching, and in particular Fathers and Sons with Seth Numrich was a tour-de-force double act between those two rising stars pushing each other on to greater levels of greatness (once again, Friel’s a genius) – but he was in the audience of Kings of War at the Barbican and didn’t say thank you when I held the loo door open for him so now he’s dead to me. Hot showbiz gossip, that.