THE BEAR: AFTERPLAY To 15 April.
Tour.
AFTER PLAY and THE BEAR
by Brian Friel by Anton Chekhov in a version by Brian Friel.
Attic Theatre Company Tour to 15 April 2007.
Runs: 2hr One interval.
Review: Rod Dungate 23 March at Old Joint Stock Theatre Birmingham.
A valuable chance to see two theatre gems.
I don’t know about you, but I rush to theatres when I can to see Chekhov’s major plays. So it was I dashed to The Old Joint Stock to see The Bear; it’s rare that I get a chance to see ‘the shorts’.
Brian Friel’s version of the play thrusts the action into 21st century sensibilities while retaining Chekhov’s original setting. The two main characters are Irish. A mix you might think wouldn’t work, but surprisingly it works well.
Recently widowed Elena mourns the death of her husband; she thinks it’s out of love but it’s more to show him what faithfulness really is – he was less than faithful when alive. Into her sheltered life comes bit of rough Gregory, impoverished (of course!) landowner urgently after a debt owed by Elena’s husband . . . Man meets Woman.
Chekhov winds his play up into a vigorous farce and Friel’s translation homes in on the youthful affirmation of life and living. Ruth Gibson’s Elena Ivanova is charming and she zips in and out of temper with lightening speed. Paul Boyle’s landowner Gregory has a naive attraction about him – the number of wives and near-wives he’s had is part of his comedic make-up.
The play’s a glorious whirl; though Jenny Lee (directing) pushes too hard for the farce dimension. I’d like to see the actors sit back a bit on their performances to let the real life grow between them; the seeds are there.
Afterplay is beautifully written and the company do it great justice. Friel imagines Andrey (Three Sisters) and Sonya (Uncle Vanya) meeting 20 years on in their lives in a seedy Moscow café. Step by step by step, Friel shows us how life has eluded them.
Edmund Kente creates the elderly Andrey. He holds together all the various levels of humility, humour, irony, loss, deep sadness with great delicacy as he reveals his truths to Sonya and to us. Deborah Maclaren (Sonya) gives a star of a performance. It’s hard to take your eyes off her. Everything about her is right and she opens up her deep well of loneliness – ‘What I fear is the endless tundra of aloneness’ – without appearing to do anything. This is a perfect merging of actor and character.
Here, Lee never forces the pace and the play grows within its relaxed presentation.
The Bear:
Elena Ivanova Popova: Ruth Gibson.
Luka: Edmund Kente.
Gregory Stepanovitch Smirnov: Paul Boyle.
Afterplay:
Sonya Alexandra Serebriakova: Deborah Maclaren.
Andrey Prozorov: Edmund Kente.
Director: Jenny Lee.
Designer: Laura Smith.
Lighting: Roger Frith.
2007-03-24 10:28:57