Playwright: Anton Chekhov
At: Apple Tree Theatre, 595 Elm Place in Highland Park
Phone: ( 847 ) 432-4335; $38
Runs through: July 17
BY MARY SHEN BARNIDGE
How responsible are our idols for the power we invest in them? If a man falls in love with a woman, is it necessarily through her efforts that he does so? And if a clan chooses to shower adulation on one of their number, who is to blame when he turns out to be an ungrateful and self-centered brat?
Chekhov might not have had these themes in mind when he wrote his ironical comedy of a rural household disrupted by glamorous visitors who cannot help but be less than meets the eye. But Brian Friel's adaptation of the classic Russian play spotlights Ivan 'Vanya' Voynitsky's envy of his brother-in-law, Professor Alexander Serebryakov. For years, Vanya and his niece, Sonya, have managed the family estate, pouring its income into support for the celebrated academic's career while stinting themselves. Matters are further complicated when the object of their devotion returns home with his beautiful but shallow second wife, who promptly bedazzles the crusading Doctor Astrov, to the dismay of the mousy Sonya.
The rule-of-thumb when answering the question 'What is this play ABOUT?' is to ask who CHANGES in the course of the action. Despite its mostly-equity cast, however, this Apple Tree production exhibits the stasis associated with classroom exercises, its conflicts emerging as curiously unengaging, diluting any sympathy we might develop for the unfortunate citizens' shattered illusions or tension inherent in their desperate remedies. Vanya vents his frustration in a flurry of alcohol-fueled rage, but since Ross Lehman has played him as a grumpy old foozle from the beginning, we are unmoved. Kate Fry does her reliable waif-at-the-window act, but Sonya's vow to bury her broken heart in mind-numbing work seems a mere continuation of her self-effacement.
Only Shawn Douglass as the visionary Astrov and Barbara Clear as the phlegmatic Marina appear to have adopted a CHARACTER, albeit with no variation in speaking tempo to signal spiritual growth arising out of their progress. Friel's imposition of Irish temperments on his Russian milieu renders the poetry of his dialogue as seemingly elusive to actors as costume designer Frances Maggio's eclectic mix of frock coats and leg-of-mutton sleeves with Henley sports-shirts renders the play's universe chronologically ambiguous. Now THAT's irony.