Theatre in Review: Ivanov (Classic Stage Company)

	Juliet Rylance, Ethan Hawke, and Joely Richardson. Photo: Josh Lehrer

"Isn't it possible that you just don't understand me?" So asks Ethan Hawke as the tragically self-obsessed title character of Ivanov. It's a question that has unfortunate reverberations, as CSC, a theatre company that has excelled with the works of Anton Chekhov, finds itself at sea with his most problematic work.

On paper, it looked like all systems were go; an exceptionally fine company was assembled under the direction of Austin Pendleton, who was responsible for CSC's vividly realized Three Sisters. (Pendleton also appears as the dissolute landowner Lebedev, a role he first played at Yale Rep in 1990.) A first-class design team was engaged, as well, including several veterans of CSC's Chekhov productions. One had every right to expect that these artists could cast a revealing light on a play that has confounded audiences and critics for more than a century.

And this Ivanov certainly has its moments -- when, for example, Joely Richardson, as the lonely, dying wife of the title character, silently spies on her adulterous husband, and, seeing him take another woman in his embrace, gives herself away by falling into a dead faint, or when Hawke's Ivanov rejects his wife, spitting out a terrible epithet that raises gasps from the audience. A certain macabre humor is on display at times -- when George Morfogen, as an elderly, impecunious aristocrat, produces a gun to ward off the attentions of a boorish guest, or when, in his best world-weary manner, he greets an unwelcome female as "Madame Ubiquitous." And the author's supreme gift for irony is on full display in the scene in which Juliet Rylance's Sasha who, having thrown herself at Ivanov, realizes on their wedding day that he was far more interesting when he seemed an impossible dream.

But, despite the considerable experience of everyone involved, something has gone fundamentally wrong this time around. Ivanov is one of Chekhov's earliest plays, and many of his trademark qualities are present -- a torpid, stifling atmosphere; a supporting cast of foolish, narrow-minded provincials; and a powerful sense that the clock is ticking even as the characters fritter away their lives. There's something especially interesting about the depiction of the nightly parties at the Lebedev house, to which most of the characters are drawn -- often against their better natures -- for surprisingly joyless bouts of drinking and gaming.

Still, compared to his masterpieces, Ivanov is surprisingly crude; the young writer had yet to perfect his trademark blend of comedy and heartache. It also lacks the solid, subtly wrought construction of the later plays. As a result, Ivanov is all over the map, veering from farcical comedy to melodramatic confrontations and back again, with no evident master plan. The play's central triangle is all too frequently pushed offstage in favor of a surprisingly colorless gallery of minor players. And the title character is all too easily dismissed as a monster of selfishness.

Pendleton handles the script as if it were The Cherry Orchard or Uncle Vanya, establishing a leisurely pace and treating each sequence with loving care. What's missing is an overview that would pull together the helter-skelter collection of characters, situations, and tones into anything cohesive. In this respect, it is inferior to Gerald Gutierrez's 1997 staging at Lincoln Center Theatre, which gave the action a potent injection of black comedy. (I will never forget Marian Seldes as Zinaida, Lebedev's wife, a grasping, petit-bourgeois crone. Seldes looked like a 19th-century caricature come to life; the very sight of her was enough to provoke a laugh. At CSC, Roberta Maxwell is her usual fine professional self, but the character is much less vividly realized.) Pendleton's production is especially lacking in laughter; some scenes are so languidly staged that, at times, I wasn't certain that the actors hadn't forgotten their lines.

The biggest challenge is the title role, a landowner and minor government official afflicted with acute depression. (That arguably too-contemporary word is used in Carol Rocamora's generally fluent translation.) In his fecklessness and inability to care about anyone other than himself, Ivanov is both part of a Russian literary tradition of hopeless solipsists (such as Ivan Goncharov's Oblomov) and a preview of the existential vagabonds of Samuel Beckett. He is also sometimes called the Russian Hamlet. And, as such, he is a backbreakingly difficult character to realize. (Kevin Kline, in the Lincoln Center production, gave him a Byronic aspect, offset by a talent for slashing self-criticism; also, despite his navel-gazing, something real appeared to be happening between him and Hope Davis, as Sasha.) At CSC, Hawke hasn't found a plausible approach to the character; his Ivanov is petulant, highly irritable, rapidly approaching basket-case status. He isn't suffering from a sickness of the soul; he is merely cranky. In his search for intensity, the actor pumps up the volume, stamping his foot and shouting his lines to surprisingly little effect. The effect is damaging; the play is robbed of its vital center, the closest thing it has to an organizing principle.

The rest of the cast fares better, even if their characters are of variable interest. Aside from Rylance, who, despite much intelligent work, never really seems that desperately desirous of Ivanov, and Glenn Fitzgerald, who can't do much with the dullish role of Borkin, the overseer of Ivanov's estate, everyone else has his or her moments. Joely Richardson is heartbreaking as Anna, who surrendered her Jewish religion to be Ivanov's wife, and now has nothing to show for her sacrifice. Jonathan Marc Sherman is also solid as the doctor who, disgusted with Ivanov, repeatedly and vainly warns him that Anna is at death's door.

In Santo Loquasto's clever set design, a single towering wall, located upstage, serves to represent both Ivanov's and Lebedev's estates; it's an economical approach -- allowing Pendleton to stage some remarkably swift scene changes -- that also succeeds in being richly atmospheric. Keith Parham's superb lighting includes brilliant sunlight, a moonlight wash that frames a lovers' rendezvous in silhouette, and some evocative gaslit interior effects. Marco Piemontese's costumes look like real clothing worn by real people; the ladies' clothes feature some beautifully wrought details. Ryan Rumery's music and sound design are both solidly executed.

Great care has been taken with this Ivanov, but to too little effect. Time after time this production threatens to come to life, only to sink back into a state of languor -- and the title character remains a blank throughout. This one will be best enjoyed by Chekhov completists.--David Barbour