The Marriage by Nikolai Gogol; A Month in the Country by Ivan Turgenev

Review by: Gerald M. Berkowitz

Theatre Journal, Vol. 31, No. 2 (May, 1979), pp. 251-252
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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251

THEATRE IN REVIEW

in the Countryis a valedictoryproduction,mournThe productionwas staged by Anatoly Efrosaca production cordingto thetraditional
formshe and his colleagues
ful, nostalgic, and brightly-colored,
about thenecessityforcontinuedrenewalof lifeand have discoveredover thelast fewyears,but thisold
how farfromeasy thisis.
stuffhas been synthesized.Efros's art is utterly
topical in concept,and thedirectorwho is creating
The firstthingthat strikesanyone who sees the one of theyoungestMoscow theatres,GedryusMatproduction is D. Krymov's design. Center stage skyavichus,triednotto missa singleperformance
of
stands an elegantwrought-iron
summerhouse.It is Month in the Countryin order to "make contact
lovely,but we soon realizethatit is actuallya cage, withgreatness."Not by chance is Matskyavichusa
and also a carousel,whose rotationbecomesa kind pupil of Knebel, as was Efros. Continuityis preof symbolfor the passage of time. To the side are served, but at the same time the theatre is retwo toy carriages,one even with a ragdoll coach- juvenatedand thisguaranteesits progress.
man, but neither with horses. They are going
YULY KAGARLITSKY
nowhere,for everythingis frozen,and only time
Professor,CITIS
moves.
BORIS KAGARLITSKY
Student,CITIS
The realitywithwhich the actorslive on stage is
trans.LAURENCESENELICK
striking,They speak to one anotherquite simply,
TuftsUniversity
with no actor's gimmicks,phoniness,or presentational qualities.The intonationsare everyday.
The characterswho live in thisworldare doomed.
The best of what theyhave lies in thepast. They did
not do what theymighthave done, and now theyno
longerdo anything.The ridiculousbecomesdoleful.
One afteranother the leading charactersbecome
conscious of theirdying. Time and directionhave
altered; the vanguard has become the rear-guard.
Everythingis in the past. Islaev attemptsto busy
himselfwith building, but why build in a house
wherethereis no happiness?His schemes,whenever
he talksabout themto his wife,sound like words of
condolence. Natalya Petrovna can derive nothing
fromher love for Belyaev, but this love provides
him a good lesson. The older generationis passing,
having accomplished nothing, although it was
beautiful.

THE MARRIAGE. By Nikolai Gogol.

A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY. By Ivan Turgenev.
Moscow Drama Company in Malaya Bronnaya
Street,Edinburgh,Scotland. August 21 and 22,
1978.

The Malaya Bronnaya company, one of

Moscow's smaller but highly-regardedrepertory
theatres,made its firstappearance in the West with
thesetwo classics,performedin Russianat the1978
EdinburghFestival (with simultaneoustranslations
provided),and thusoffereda unique view of at least
one directionthe realisticRussian theatreis taking.
The companyand itsdirectorAnatoliEfrosconsider
themselvesto be withinthe Stanislavskytradition,
and ifthesetwoproductionsare representative,
their
Belyaev and Rakitanpainfullyfail to understand branch of that traditionhas developed into a loweach otherthroughouttheentireperformance.
Their
keyedand internalized
actingstylestrikingly
parallel
to almostPinteresqueor Beckettian to its American
dialoguestestify
counterparts,while paradoxically
lack ofcommunication.Thereseemsto be a wall befeelingits way toward a kind of expressionismin
tweenthem.But thenat parting,theygaze at each
stagingand production.
otherand fora wordlessmomentthereis eye contact
The Gogol is a sad comedy about a confirmed
betweenthem,and theysqueeze each other'shand.
"I have thehonor,"says Rakitin.This is not a good- bachelorwho is led almost to the altar throughthe
bye but a farewelldeclaration.Rakitin'sgeneration tirelesseffortsof a matchmakingfriend,only to
never loses honor and conscience, and this is its panic and escape througha window at the last
minute.Exceptforsome incidentalscenesinvolving
legacy to Belyaev.
his rivals for the lady in question,the focus of the
Mozart's music sounds, bittersweet,and stage play and mostof itshumorlie in thehero'sconstant
hands begin to dismantlethe set. This performance vacillation.He has several "shouldI or shouldn'tI"
is over, and withwonderfulease the cage thathad monologues during which the actor prowled the
seemedso durableand weightyis destroyed.The old stage and even the aisles of the theatreseemingly
obliviousto his surroundings
world disappears and that is beautiful,but also
as he talkedto himself.
Whilehe could always be heard,thequietand innertragic,forherepeople lived, loved, and suffered.

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252

TI,May1979

directedacting bore a strikingresemblanceto the

"Actors'Studiomumble"so oftensatirizedby Brando imitators.His scenes with otherswere similarly
underplayed,suggestinga characterso lost in his
own thoughtsthathe had to rouse himselfto take
partin thesimplestconversations.Whilenone of the
other characterswas quite so self-absorbed,the
general tone of the acting, even among the more
grotesquecomiccharacters,was mutedand vaguely
distracted, drawing our attention to each
individual'sinnerlifemore than to theirinterplay,
and giving the comedy an appropriatelyelegiac
mood.

subtexts of this play whose surface dealt with

lonelinessand theneedforlove. As in TheMarriage,
"moviemusic"was used to underlinetheemotional
contentofkeyscenes,and Natalia's growingfrustration and passion were symbolized by repeated
changesof costume-froma simplewhitedress,to a
pastel one, to brightred.

As in The Marriage,theactingin A Monthin the

Countrywas so low-keyedas to be almost offhand
at times. Natalia and her old admirer Rakitin,
discussingher obsessionwith the tutor,mighthave
been making small talk. Indeed, so underplayed
were theirscenes that much of the firsthalf of the
seemedto be about himratherthanher,ifonly
In contrastto thisnotablyuntheatrical
actingstyle play
advicetookup moretime
was a productionconceptof imaginativetheatricali- becausehiscalmly-presented
appeals forhelp. Even at
ty. The Marriageis a play about what-might-have- thanhercalmly-presented
been, and directorEfroskept the might-havecon- her most passionate moments,in the latterhalf of
theplay, Natalia was movedonlyto stifledsobs, not
stantlyin our consciousnessby bringingit onstage.
The play began witha tableau of all the characters outbursts.As in the Gogol, we were shown quiet
lined up for the wedding that would never take hintsof internalsorrowsratherthanexpressionsof
the strongestoutward explace, and ended with a similarimaginaryfamily high passions. Notably,
of emotion in the whole play came in a
portraitcomplete with children,which was con- pression
trastedto the realityof the weepingdesertedbride. scene in which the actingwas reallysubserviantto
In between, characters being discussed would thesymbolicset: as Natalia told her rival Verochka
of herplan to marryheroff,she led theyoungergirl
casually wander onstage and pose-the hero eminto thegazebo and closed her in, assuringherwith
bracinghis brideas she consideredhis potentialas a
ironythatshe should not feeltrapped.
to
be
the
suitors
various
scrutinized, triumphant
lover,
liningup
a dozen children appearing and disappearing in
In a programnote on directorEfros'sinterestin
various combinationsas the couple imaginedtheir both
eccentricityand realism in characterization,
future.The sound effectsalso reached toward ex- AlexanderAnikstcommentedthat"thecombination
withthefrequentuse of "moviemusic," seems
pressionism,
effecunlikely,but theresultsseem extremely
notablytheweddingmarchof theopeningtableau, tive." The same could be said of the Malaya Bronwhich recurredthroughoutthe play with growing
naya Theatre'scombinationof Method-likeacting
irony.The finalscene,afterthegroom'sescape, was and semi-expressionistic
staging.It is in thecurious
sound of horse's
dominatedby thehighly-amplified
marriageof thesedisparatestylesthatthecompany's
hooves recedinginto the distance.
power lies, along withits fascinationfora Western
viewer.
If the centralproductionimage of The Marriage
was the ironyof alternativerealities,the metaphor
GERALD M. BERKOWITZ
at thecore of A Monthin theCountrywas physical
NorthernIllinois University
alienation. The play was set in a corner of the
Islayev lawn dominated by an ornate, cage-like,
Samuel Beckett.
two-storygazebo. Throughoutthe play characters WAITING FOR GODOT. By
L'AtelierTh6^tral de Louvain-La-Neuveand the
carryingon themostcommonplaceor mostintimate
Festivalof Avignon,Honor Court.July16, 1978.
conversationswould driftapart to speak fromopposite ends of the stage. Repeatedly, with no THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE. By Bertolt
motivationin the lines, and even counter to the
Brecht.
scene'smotivations,one or anotherwould enterthe
L'AtelierTh6atral de Louvain-La-Neuveand Le
gazebo to talk throughthegrillwork,or even climb
Theatre National de Caillot, Honor Court. July
up to its roof to continuethe conversationfromas
27, 1978.
far away as possible. This pattern was never
presentedas deliberaterejectionor avoidance on the THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES. By Molibre.
Le Theatre des Quartiers d'lvry, Carmelite
part of thecharacters,but ratheras an unconscious
Cloisters. July 16, 1978. The Thirty-Second
inabilityto cope with intimacy,however slight.
Festivalof Avignon,France.
Isolation and the fear of contact thus became the

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