A weekend at the Huntington

If you don't feel like going to see XXX or Austin Powers III again this weekend, there's a great new play premiering at the Huntington Theatre Company. Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country adapted by the Irish playwright Brian Friel and directed by the theatre's artistic director Nicholas Martin opens to the public Friday with student ticket discounts and $12 seats.

Turgenev's play looks at a group of people living out in the comfort of the countryside manor of Arkady Islayev (Tom Bloom), his wife, Natalya (Jennifer Van Dyck) and their supporting cast including family friends, servants, a young tutor and a crazy doctor among others.

The plot depicts the lifestyle of the rich and the bored, who create their own dramas to escape the ennui of their daily lives usually at the expense of others (similar to The Great Gatsby). Natalya has many people around her estate who love her and who are at her command because of her dynamic personality and keen intellect. Van Dyck does an excellent job of portraying these aspects as well as exploring several levels of the character including her capacity for evil and her true desires.

Family friend and Natalya's long-time admirer Michel Ratikin (James Joseph O'Neil) shares the same intellectual sophistication as the woman he loves, but she prefers to keep him around as her "lapdog." As Ratikin, O'Neil gives a convincing performance as a character who settles for the company of the woman he loves even if he can never truly have her.

Turgenev wrote the play about his experience living on a country estate with the woman he adored, Pauline Viardot, and her husband, Louis. A 19th century Russian writer and playwright, Turgenev followed Gogol, wrote with Tolstoy, and preceded Chekhov in the chain of Russian writers.

The individual performances of O'Neil and Van Dyck stand out on their own, but their chemistry on stage may be the most memorable aspect of the production. It is their confrontations that remind one why the theater is so exciting and so alive. It is comparable to being in a room when two people who you can tell have known each other a long time are having an argument and everything comes out except that it's not so awkward for you to be witnessing this scene.

I emphasize Michel and Natalya because with their mutual capacity for wit, love and hurt, they are the most well-defined characters on the stage. In the end, despite the presence of several other sub-stories, it is the lost love of Michel and Natalya that provides the real tragedy for Turgenev's drama and for his life _ with Natalya being a symbol for his love, Pauline Viardot. Everything else in the play seems to be either part of the destruction of that relationship or simply irrelevant.

The introduction of a young tutor who has come to the estate to teach the Islayeva's son and then steals the heart of both Natalya and her ward Vera (Jessica Dickey) certainly gets in the way of Michel's relationship with his love. The tutor, Aleksey, is played by Ben Fox, who has a good understanding of the role and the situation that his character is put in: obviously, not a comfortable one.

The only other character really worth mentioning is the crazy doctor Shpigelsky (Jeremiah Kissel) who provides the majority of comic relief for the play and some of his own commentary on the nature of these Russian elites' lifestyle. Kissel does an excellent job in commanding the stage as the doctor who allows the audience to look at the characters from another point of view.

Other characters include Katya, the servant girl, well-played by Stacy Fisher but not a terribly well-written part. The same can be said for several of the other actors in the production, who added their own comedy or plot points. The two notable exceptions are Alice Duffy, who played Arkady Islayeva's widowed mother, and Tom Bloom who played Islayeva.

Ms. Duffy walked a fine line between subtlety and non-acting in her role and Mr. Bloom played a very feeble master of the house, which made his character somewhat funny but in the end, completely powerless. One wishes the director would have encouraged the actor to explore other levels of this character.

As always at the Huntington, high commendations should go to the design staff. Alexander Dodge created a beautiful indoor/outdoor set that even included a rotating center and actual leaves on the stage. Michael Krass designed beautiful costumes that fit the time period wonderfully. The lighting design of Jeff Croiter magically transformed the indoor stage to the feel of being outdoors in the summertime.

All in all, the Huntington stages a very commendable production of Turgenev's tale of the Russian elite's experiences with love, choices and the circumstances that affect them both.



Tickets are available by calling 617 266-0800.





@s:Another wonderful Huntington pla