Reviews 2000
Reviews 2000
✭✭✭✭✭
by Anton Chekhov, adapted by Susan Coyne & László Marton, directed by László Marton
Soulpepper Theatre Company, du Maurier Theatre Centre, Toronto
June 28-October 1, 2000
“Another Triumph for Soulpepper”
Last year the Soulpepper Theatre Company presented Chekhov's "Platonov" in what it called a "laboratory production". Laboratory or not, the production was fine enough that László Marton was awarded a Dora for his direction. This year Soulpepper has brought "Platonov" back after its laboratory testing, and it is even better than it was last year. The arc of the action is now in clearer focus, which is quite an accomplishment in a play where the relationship between no two characters is simple and where no character is certain of his or her motivation. The actors, all but one of whom was in last year's production, have now so grown into their roles that they make the many emotional twists they take seem completely natural.
Chekhov never bothered to edit the seven hours of the "comedy without a name" he had written in 1881 to a playable version. The task of translation and adaptation for Soulpepper fell to Marton and actor Susan Coyne. In my view, their version is superior to Michael Frayn's 1986 adaptation "Wild Honey" seen in the West End and on Broadway. The Marton/Coyne version is less melodramatic and shows us more clearly the prototypes of characters and themes to be found later in Chekhov's four great works. Their version is written in a highly colloquial Canadian English so that, even though characters have Russian names and speak of kopecks and rubles, the play could easily be set in any remote town in Canada.
The story concerns a group of friends whose centre is the town schoolteacher Platonov, once the brightest light of the group but who now is embittered by the aimless mediocrity he has become. All those around him see him as the man he was not the man he is because to see the reality would force them to recognize how they, too, have changed for the worse. The action is precipitated by the arrival in town of Sophia, the new wife of Platonov's friend Voynitsev. Sophia knew Platonov at university in the days when both were idealists. Their decision to rekindle their affair is clearly a vain attempt get back to the kind of people they once were. Since Platonov is married to his best friend's sister and since Voynitsev's step-mother is also sexually interested in Platonov, their affair also has the potential to ruin the lives of all around them. Platonov is so convinced of the pointlessness of his existence that he is incapable taking any action to halt the flow of events he finds himself in so that he and his community are swept away to a tragic end.
The text of the play has changed from last year with soliloquies drastically reduced or excised completely. What has increased are ironic allusions to the theatre and to other plays--to "Oedipus" and especially "Hamlet". Like Oedipus, Platonov is himself the plague that destroys his community, but unlike him, Platonov lacks the courage to punish or banish himself. Like Hamlet, Platonov is an intellectual caught in a complex series of events that his inaction only causes to become worse. Unlike Hamlet, Platonov has no longer has any nobility of mind or purpose and certainly no sense of "readiness". As he says, "Hamlet feared the Ghost--I fear life". The increased presence of these allusions gives the audience a touchstone to assess the confused actions the play presents and to throw into relief the unheroic reality Chekhov sees in modern times.
With two exceptions, the cast is superb. Soulpepper Artistic Director Albert Schultz plays the tour-de-force role of Platonov, on stage for virtually the entire three hours of the show. He makes Platonov's continually changing moods--from wit to self-pity to anger to foolishness--seem completely natural. He is someone who is helplessly watching himself sinking into a mire, knowing the affairs he has are only a temporary distraction since they ultimately drag him down further. Robin Stevan makes the role of Platonov's innocent wife Sasha believable. She makes us see that Platonov was drawn to her because of her simplicity and naiveté and that these allow her to love her husband despite his indiscretions. As her brother, the drunken doctor Triletsky, Diego Matamoros turns in yet another amazing performance of a character even farther gone than Platonov, readier to drink than see patients, seeking only to numb the pain of existing. Yet, in the end, he becomes a kind of Horatio to Platonov's Hamlet.
Liisa Repo-Martell turns in an equally amazing performance as Triletsky's would-be girlfriend Grekova, the intellectual girl Platonov mercilessly teases but who so longs for love that if he says the word she can still be drawn to her tormentor. Nancy Palk as Anna Petrovna, Voynitsev's randy step-mother, perfectly captures the beautiful intellectual woman who sees she has wasted her life and, like Platonov, seeks out affairs to distract herself from uselessness and boredom. Susan Coyne, excellent in the crucial role of Sophia, is not amoral like Anna Petrovna but is attracted to Platonov because she thinks she can rejuvenate both him and her herself. As her husband Voynitsev, Stuart Hughes does all he can to make his character seem like a wealthy momma's boy, but his looks and general forcefulness make it difficult for him to be taken for the wimp he is supposed to be. Newcomer Christian Lloyd has taken over the role of the student Isaac from Mike Shara, who played it last year. Lloyd is adequate but is not impassioned enough to make us believe, as Shara did, that this is a version of Platonov as a young man. Michael Hanrahan is excellent again as the tramp Osip, who, though a thief and would-be murderer, is outraged at the immorality of his "betters".
The show is played on Victoria's Wallace's brown box of a set where the walls and stove-pipe rise almost the full three-storey height of the du Maurier Theatre. The effect is to make the characters seem as if they are at the bottom of a well, which pretty much is how the characters see themselves. This time there are more costume changes for Coyne and Palk as befits their roles. Wallace's costumes range from the attractive outfits of the wealthy women to descending levels of grubbiness in Platonov, the doctor and Osip. László Marton has asked for and received from lighting designer Kevin Lamotte the kind of extreme contrasts in light and dark often seen in modern European productions. In a party scene low lights at the front make the characters cast huge shadows on the back wall as we realize they see themselves as shadows of their former selves. In the only outdoor scene the stage is neatly divided between the dark of the front half of the stage and the brightness of the back half near Platonov's house. Marton uses this stark contrast to distinguish what the characters do in private in the dark from what they say in public in the light.
Marton has managed to shape and control a play which in less skilled hands could easily seem chaotic. He and his actors have mastered the rapid mood changes between farce and pathos the play constantly demands. And despite this control, Marton has drawn performances from the actors that are so natural they seem improvised on the spot. Having seen this production twice, I know they are, in fact, the product of the highest art.
©Christopher Hoile
Photo: Albert Schultz and Susan Coyne. ©2000 Soulpepper Theatre Company.
2000-07-24
Platonov