Ivanov with Ethan Hawke

[skynyc]

This is currently playing at Classic Stage and got mixed reviews.

 

I didn't love it. It's very hard to enjoy spending an evening with no one you like, or want to like. Or even find interesting. I believe this is an early work of Chekhov's and it shows. The stock characters are all here, but completely one-dimensional: the parsimonious wife and her insipid husband, the "good" doctor whose cries of "I'm an honest man," just make him unbearable, the old-widower without a dowry to marry yet again, the aging impoverished Count and the weathy woman who wants to be a countess, the conniving steward, and the card-playing young suitor who cannot speak about anything except bridge.

 

And then there's Ivanov. Married a pretty young Jewish woman because he thought he would get her large dowry, and when she is, instead, disowned by her family for marrying out the faith, Ivanov quickly falls out of love. And as his bride succumbs to consumption, he woos the pretty young daughter of the loaded landowner, who is fascinated by his worldliness.

 

There are a couple of well-written, and well-played scenes, and Juliet Rylance and Joely Richardson are both strong as the two leading women, but this felt like a long three hours. There were problems for me with the design, and moments where even the translation felt it wasn't all done by the same person.

 

One real great theatrical moment occurred in the second act when Ivanov is (oddly) speaking directly to the audience...bemoaning his weakness and listing his catalogue of faults. He's bored, and unfaithful, he's depressed and unmotivated...etc.

 

A cell phone went off...and Hawke walked right over to the section of audience where it occurred and and gestured broadly...."and no one ever calls me."

 

Hard to recommend this one...and I can usually find something to like about most things.