A Month in the Country

Synopsis

Comic adaptation of Ivan Turgenev's tale of summer love. Natalya apparently has everything then a young student arrives as a holiday tutor to her ten year old son. Over the coming month her life, and the lives of her family, is turned upside down.

Our Review:

1 October 2010

A Month in the Country has been described as Chekhovian, which is true insofar as it’s about a wealthy Russian family in the 19th century. But Turgenev’s melodrama has none of the subtleties of Chekhov, in fact it’s more like a Russian soap opera as bored wife Natalya comes to terms with the fact that she’s in love with her son’s tutor (who is in turned loved by Natalya’s ward, Vera).

Brian Friel’s version is rich in modernisms and colloquial speech and Jonathan Kent’s production captures the almost operatic nature of the action – it’s a play that’s so rich in soliloquies and two-handed conversations that it’s almost like a chamber opera. And Paul Brown’s sumptuous set, with branches stretching into the auditorium evokes languid summer days.

But this is really a play that hinges on the central performance and Janie Dee fails to pack any emotional punch as the wo...

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Latest User Review

JC - 4 October 2010:

Oh dear. I suppose we have to put up with opinionated pseudo-critics like "oncewas12", but you don't have to be a stevedore on the Clyde to recognise that the splendid James McArdle is no geordie, but from Glasgow - via RADA! ...

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