MODERN ECHOES OF A DYING FALL
Years ago I came out of a dullish production in Yorkshire of Chekhov’s last play, set very traditionally with samovar, parasols and big hats. A reluctant chap behind me observed to his wife as they left “Eh, it was about time they had that Revolution!” . Of course the playwright got there first: the slow-burn ineffectiveness of Ranevskaya’s family and disaffected domestics, all facing the end of an era and of a great estate, is already skewered halfway through by the passionate social politics of Pyotr the eternal student. He rants to good effect against the selfishness, the social gulf, the idle aristocracy running out of money in the big house while serfs toil and beggar children go hungry. At this point Benedict Andrews’ verbally very free modern-dress adaptation drops in references to Austerity and to the exploitation of immigrants seeking a better life.
It’s a play about a society whose old top layers are crumbling broke while a middle class rises – personnified by the wealth and business sense of the kulak peasant’s son Lopakhin. And straightaway let me say that one of the best things in this eccentric, rather overlong production is that for once Lopakhin is not satirized as a grabby city chap: Adeel Akhtar has charm, a beguiling presence always, and is credibly decent in his hopelessness when he tries to persuade Nina Hoss’ airhead Ranevskaya and her chattery brother Leonid to sell the orchard and pay the debts.
But all the family are in various states of depression and disaffection: Marli Siu’s Varya tying not to fall in love, Sadie Soverall’s Anya sweetly protective. Michael Gould as Leonid is often funny: Andrews, who also directs, keeps bright lights up on us all (which is quite distracting) and has cast members leap up from the front benches. When on the vast empty stage (the back wall too is made of carpet ) Leonid decides to deliver the famous romantic speech to a hundred-year-old bookcase, he just hauls up a random audience member to play the piece of furniture. For there is no furniture, just a waste of patterned carpet, continued on the back wall. So only by wandering around in the interval might you find candles and a Russian icon-corner just offstage. No samovar ’n parasol picturesquery tolerated here.
One problem, despite the excellent cast (Daniel Monks as Pyotr particularly magnetic once he gets going) is that modern dress – oafish manservant Yasha very much the Hoxton hipster – creates a credibility gap. Hard to believe they ever were aristocrats. Their workless uselessness and mournful fatalist idleness loses the period romance which usually (whatever past period the director chooses) offers a distanced softening and empathy. This lot in their T-shirts can, whisper it apologetically, become just downright annoying. The best moments are from June Watson as the ancient retainer Fir, deploying some truly masterly doddering and an air of wise contempt for the lot of them.
The second half gets a bit Saltburn, as a drum kit, mic, amps and smoke machine come out for a prolonged drunken party scene complete with conga and a rendering of the Turbines song “don’t waste your pearls on me I’m only a pig”. (Dan Balfour’s sound design and May Kershaw’s music are very much front-and-centre). During the rave Leonid is off at the auction, and only the most deluded believe that a distant aunt is going to stump up and save the orchard. His return does energize the drama, something for which we are hungry by then. But the long drawn out final farewell to the old house, cast ripping up the carpet into disorderly heaps, would be more properly poignant and Chekhovian were it the end of a more heartfelt human saga. Didn’t quite get there for me: recollections may vary, though . And there is beauty in Hoss’ last collapse and speech, and in her daughter’s lovely consolation.
But it is only when Fir , alone and forgotten by the family as the chainsaws start in the orchard, that the heart moves a bit. Come the revolution, at least give the old folk some respect…
donmarwarehouse.com. to 22 June
Rating 3.