Ivanov
In this moment–one of the most Chekhovian on a Chicago stage in recent memory–we learn that life is serious, fate is cruel, love doesn’t stand a chance against bad timing, and human beings are incapable of the heroic gestures that might elevate their lives above the level of farce. Yet in Chekhov’s eyes, our pathetic efforts to find some semblance of dignity make us dear, pitiable creatures. Like Borkin, we’re clowns bumbling along as the sky falls in.
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Fortunately, European Repertory Company gives us 150 more minutes every bit as Chekhovian as this one. Director Luda Lopatina has brought this 112-year-old play into such exquisite focus and imbued it with such depth of feeling that you might think it was written yesterday. Of course, the efficient new translation by ERC cofounder Yasen Peyankov and Columbia College instructor Peter Christensen also gives the play a vitality lacking in stuffier translations. But Lopatina’s 15 cast members seem so at home in Chekhov’s tragicomic universe that they could probably have delivered a convincing production in Middle English.
Chekhov doesn’t give actors much to work with except the characters’ relationships. Luckily, the European Repertory Company cast make the best of what they’ve been given, creating a network of carefully nuanced affinities, associations, and alliances. As in other Chekhov plays, romantic love is next to impossible, but ordinary affection thrives; here that affection is so real it seems these actors have known one another all their lives. Ivanov may be a selfish, thoughtless, irritable bore, but Sasha’s attraction to him is unmistakable in Jennifer Kern’s masterful turn as the naive 20-year-old. Lebedev and Shabyelski, the lone old men, may drive each other mad, but stoke them with vodka and pickles and team them up against the priggish Lvov and they are in each other’s arms.
