A Month In The Country. Brian Friel after Turgenev. Dir Richard Beecham. Chiswick, London. 2nd December 2006

We’re seated around four sides of a square stage, set up as a wood planked drawing room, and only two feet above the floor of the hall. In the front row we are so close to the actors we could reach out and touch them, and this intimacy creates a wonderful sense of sharing the room with them, listening and observing this Russian family. There is no need for projection, and the actors’ and voices are set at normal speech level which adds to the atmosphere of inclusion. This play is deeply ironic, and a masterful observation of human emotion and character. The actors are staggeringly well-rehearsed, and their facial expressions are natural throughout.

Beecham has directed this play in such a way as to make the doctor likeable, Michel quite melodramatic, and Natalya more hysterical than I pictured from my reading of the paper text. There is more spirit on show. There is much laughter from the audience at the irony, even, most inappropriately when it is tragic, as much of it is. On paper, this play can be read as a piercingly accurate, and sympathetic, insight into human nature. It is a heart-rending tale of duplicity, betrayal, and self-sacrifice on the part of Vera. Vera’s character is wonderfully played, with humour and fresh vitality at the outset, altering to awareness and maturity as she learns that her ardent admiration of the young tutor, Aleksey, is unreturned, that her guardian is weak and treacherous, and that her childhood is over. She appears to cast away her life by marrying an old farmer with neighbouring land, but does this with great dignity and wisdom, her washed out mien, her red-eyed appearance, from genuine sobbing, and her poise lending her grace, even in defeat.