TA MAIN DANS LA MIENNE. To 12 February.

London

TA MAIN DANS LA MIENNE
by Carol Rocamora adapted by Marie-Helene Estienne

Barbican Pit To 12 February 2005-02-03 Mon-Sat 7,45pm
Runs 1hr 40mn No interval

TICKETS: 0845 120 7511
www.barbican.org.uk/bite (reduced booking fee) (run sold out)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 3 February

Essential theatre in all respects: quietly incisive, every moment counting, seamless and supernal.This selective recreation of letters between Anton Chekhov and his young actress wife Olga Knipper, performed by people who are considerably older than Chekhov lived to be or than Knipper was at the time of writing, is a million miles from that deadly ticket-trap, the love correspondence acted or read by film-stars on stage, there to charm with their own personalities audiences glad enough just to be breathing the same atmosphere as their idols. Here, instead, is deeply committed, emotionally-taut, unselfish acting, full of the precision, lightness yet depth that mark out Peter Brook and Anton Chekhov.

For the whole piece is Chekhovian. On a factual level we find an unknown woman in Chekhov's garden wearing a green band as original of Natasha in Act I of Three Sisters, while Stanislavsky's estate, with some of its inhabitants, suggests the setting and a couple of characters for Cherry Orchard.

There's a moment of Knipper as the Sisters' Masha, a fine re-creation of a period performance which suggests advanced ideas of truthfulness for its day; or Chekhov's rare anger when the actors tell him how they wept at the end of Orchard in rehearsal. (Wept? It's a comedy!).

And this production itself is a glorious display of what being Chekhovian' means. Seriousness and comedy intertwine with a swiftness that ranges over the practical, lyrical and dramatic as Chekhov is confined to south Russia for his health, and Knipper rehearses his plays in cold Moscow.

Parry is excellent, but Michel Piccoli has the tougher job of creating the spirit of one of the world's greatest, reflective yet least self-publicising playwrights. There's an unassuming naturalness that recalls, in today's theatre, Sir Alan Ayckbourn (who I remember coming onstage at the end of a triumphant trilogy of his plays to thank everyone else involved and being genuinely surprised the audience applauded him). And an underlying tolerant amusement, which is much more a comic than tragic view of life. This is great acting, devastatingly emotional, full of energy while utterly unforced.

Man and woman come together or stand apart throughout as they exchange ideas or switch the subject, till Piccoli, at his character's death, retires to the side, leaving the widow alone. In the end comes the supreme, and supremely Chekhovian, moment.

He returns to her, taking her hand in his, and picks up her question about life's meaning. What, Chekhov asks, does it mean that the snow falls. She, with many years to live, suffers deeply; he, true to his spirit beyond the last, darts his attention all round with an expression that is ever-curious, ever-accepting. The light fades on them but still shines all around, illuminating the world.

Cast:
Natasha Parry, Michel Piccoli

Director: Peter Brook
Designer/Costume: Chloe Obolensky
Lighting: Philippe Vialatte

2005-02-04 07:21:25