Kristin Scott Thomas Once Again Shows How Chekhov Is Done

Anton Chekhov may have been dead for nearly 125 years, but the old lad is currently having something of a revival on both sides of the Atlantic, and beyond. In Britain in the past couple of years, Cate Blanchett has led an all-star cast including Tom Burke and Emma Corrin in “The Seagull” at the Barbican, while in Stratford-upon-Avon Kenneth Branagh stole the show from a wan Helen Hunt and out-of-place Bill Pullman in “The Cherry Orchard.” In New York, meanwhile, Andrew Scott transferred his one-man “Vanya” to the Lucille Lortel Theater last year, to considerable acclaim, and in the past month, there has been a Korean-language version of “The Cherry Orchard” from Simon Stone, which relocated the action of the play from Russia to contemporary Seoul within a modern-day Korean corporate dynasty.It might be tempting, if somewhat inaccurate, to look at the British productions of Chekhov as being fundamentally safe and conservative and the American ones as being more innovative and dynamic. The Blanchett “Seagull,” co-adapted and directed by Thomas Ostermeier, was a sterling example of director’s theater, complete with contemporary allusions and, naturally, a heavy dose of four-letter words. And while Laura Strausfeld’s adaptation of “Ivanov,” boldly entitled “The Real Ivanov,” which recently played Off-Broadway, belied its apparent revisionism by being a relatively faithful staging of the play that may have cut the text down to 100 minutes but still had all the usual trappings of 21st-century Chekhov on stage: Period costume, a healthy dose of ennui and some wry laughs based on the gulf between how the characters perceive themselves and how the audience watches them.At its worst, Chekhov can be a parade of clichés and nonsense around the idea of straw-hatted melancholy, with miserable-looking but suspiciously healthy women complaining about an inevitable journey to Moscow while equally miserable-looking but strapping men try to seduce them, albeit in low-key and doleful fashion. Someone complains in the background about how the forestry commission plans to chop down all the trees on the estate, and everyone complains about money and drinks too much.But at its best, Chekhov can be as profound, visceral and exciting as any searing contemporary drama, matched with the deep resonance of Shakespeare. A bad “Uncle Vanya”or “Cherry Orchard” is an ordeal. But a good one is a theatrical delight that will bring enormous pleasure, if that’s the right word, and satisfaction to its audience.Ian Rickson’s new London production of “The Cherry Orchard,” with the great Kristin Scott Thomas as the impoverished grandee Madame Ranevskaya, is exactly the kind of staging that Chekhov himself, you imagine, would have approved of. Which is to say that it is translated by “The Weir” playwright Conor McPherson with a delicacy and intelligence that doesn’t preclude it from being a boisterous and at times thoroughly hilarious version, not least whenever the character of the old retainer Firs is on stage. At Stratford, Michael Elwyn played him as a senile has-been, bent double with servility and barely able to express himself. Yet here, that fine character actor Karl Johnson gives Firs an appropriately fierce quality, forever swearing at the imbeciles who he is theoretically serving, that brings down the house and gives the grateful audience some very big laughs indeed. Which, of course, makes the play’s famous ending — in which Firs, neglected by the self-absorbed family and their satellites, is locked in the abandoned house, and presumably left there to die — both highly poignant and strangely stirring, as Johnson rails against the fading of the light.This is, of course, thematically appropriate for Rickson’s production of Chekhov’s final play, which is all about the old order, and the deference to be paid towards that order, fading away, to be replaced by sterile and harsh modernity. It takes place on the eponymous cherry orchard, owned by Madame Ranevskaya, but long abandoned by her and her family as they cavort around Paris, until the money runs out and they are forced to return to their demesne. Here, they are greeted by Lopakhin (Stephen Mangan), a peasant-made-good who has long been regarded as a potential romantic match for Ranevskaya’s adopted daughter Varya, and whose curious combination of pride at his having bettered himself and humility around the family makes for a fascinating and rich character study.McPherson’s translation is relatively loose in places, and as is customary these days comes studded with some obscenities (most amusingly from Mr. Johnson), but it also conveys the poetry and sadness of the play better than any other version I have seen. If it doesn’t quite compare to the Stoppard translation that played at the Old Vic in London and the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2009, then that was because that was, as ever with that much-missed playwright, a dazzling exercise in dramatic and literary pyrotechnics that was, in places, at much Stoppard as it was Chekhov.This is more traditional without being remotely boring, and that reflects Rickson’s straight-as-a-die staging, played out on Chloe Lamford’s superb set, which actually suggests what a decrepit mansion would look like — all damp stains and peeling paint — rather than the usual incongruously pristine grand house. And Bruno Poet’s wonderful lighting design manages, without drawing unnecessary attention to itself, to evoke a fading world where all the characters feel particularly out of place.The big box office draw is, of course, Ms. Scott Thomas, currently riding high with her appearance in “Slow Horses,” the new season of which has given her particularly interesting notes to play. And she shows her continued versatility here (in a way that the usually excellent Hunt seemed completely defeated by) in a role that can often seem irritatingly overblown in the wrong hands. Ms. Scott Thomas, who appeared in an acclaimed West End production of “Three Sisters” in 2003, here plays the same role that Diane Lane took on a decade ago in Stephen Karam’s misguided Broadway adaptation of “The Cherry Orchard.” She then worked with Mr. Rickson on a staging of “The Seagull” a few years ago in London that won her an Olivier award and which went to Broadway, and she is every bit as magnetic and compelling here as a woman whose flightiness is matched by a deep, residual sorrow at the death of her young son. She’s well matched by Mangan, who is usually a great comic actor but here dials the humor down, although not entirely, to offer a poignant study of a man who is so desperately impressed by the family that his father and grandfather have served that he will do anything that he can for them — except, that is, follow through on the romantic expectations that everyone, perhaps rashly, has for him. A strong ensemble of British actors provides fine comic support, particularly Vinette Robinson as Ranevskaya’s adopted daughter, Varya, and the ever-excellent Peter Wight as Uncle Leo, a blowhard who ends the play with a position on the board of the local bank. A job, one imagines, that he will be as ill-suited to as any number of present-day denizens of Wall Street.It remains to be seen whether this production, which has been enthusiastically received in London, will travel to Broadway. Ms. Scott Thomas is a respected and well known name in America, but Mr. Mangan remains a very British figure, which may give producers pause if they hope to retain the original cast.For now this is Chekhov as it should be staged, with wit, clarity, and aching poignancy. At the end, the audience rose in an ovation. This is usual on first nights — this time I was proud to be among their number.

Kristin Scott Thomas Once Again Shows How Chekhov Is Done

Kristin Scott Thomas Once Again Shows How Chekhov Is Done

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