Off-B'way Review: The Real Ivanov

Sam Adegoke and Sam Underwood in
The Real Ivanov.
Credit: Russ Rowland

Beware of director-adaptors who use the word “real” in their versions of a classic script. Laura Strausfeld has chosen to employ the adjective to describe her edition of Anton Chekhov’s Ivanov and subtitled it “A Comedy about Despair.” It’s currently playing at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater and not a production of the CSC. While her staging does have some innovative moments and there are a few glints of pathos and humor, this Ivanov is not particularly “real” since much of the direction is stylized and most of the acting is either overblown or shallow.

The rarely-performed play was Chekhov’s first produced work (in 1887) and has not been seen in a major NYC production in almost 30 years. (The last staging was Gerald Gutierrez’s moving 1997 edition for Lincoln Center starring Kevin Kline, Marian Seldes and a brilliantly funny Max Wright.) Ivanov is not seen as frequently as Chekhov’s four other major plays because of its unrelentingly melancholy story. The title character is a depressed Russian landowner managing a bankrupt estate and his terminally ill wife Anna with whom he has fallen out of love. Nikolai Ivanov is surrounded by comically covetous buffoons and rascals including his ever-scheming estate manager Borkin, his pompous uncle Count Shabyelski, and the frivolous, mercenary Lebedev family to whom he owes a huge debt. In addition to his perpetual sadness, he is also racked with guilt because his spouse left her Jewish religion and her parents to marry him and he is now attracted to Sasha, the Lebedevs’ foolishly idealistic young daughter. 

Soph Metcalf,William DeMeritt,Kimberlee Walker,
Sam Adegoke,JordanLage,SarahLong,
Sam Underwood,SpencerAste, and AmeliaMaso
in The Real Ivanov.
Credit: Russ Rowland

Bringing off the play’s delicate balance between tragedy and comedy is a difficult challenge. Strausfeld attempts to make the case that the protagonist is a victim of clinical depression and would benefit from therapy and medication if he were born about 120 years later (at least that what is claimed in program notes and advertising for the production.) 

She stages much of the action in interesting patterns, reflecting Ivanov’s confined psyche. For the group scenes at the Lebedevs’ soiree, the characters move as if at an uncomfortable, awkward dance. In the scenes at Ivanov’s gloomy house, all action revolves around a simple bench or a table with only one chair. In the fourth act, she places them on a narrow strip of light and the actors tightly maneuver around each other like passengers on a crowded subway—again symbolizing the psychological oppression they feel. Jiyoun Chang’s lighting helps out here, defining the cage-like spaces of Ivanov’s neuroses. While the direction can be innovative, Stausfeld has neglected to emphasize the human dimension of the characters. They are either mopey victims or broad clowns.

By and large, the acting is not subtle or complex enough to convey the multiple layers of the characters’ ambiguous emotions. Sam Underwood plays Ivanov on one dark level—unremittingly down. There’s no relief from his glower. Ivory Aquino is similarly one-dimensionally dour as Anna. Amelia Mason does display a spark of intelligent determination as Sasha. Elijah Guo as the self-righteous doctor Lvov comes across as whiny and shows no emotion for his patient Anna (an important motivation for his antagonism towards Ivanov.)

Amelia Mason and Sam Underwood
in The Real Ivanov.
Credit: Russ Rowland

Sam Adegoke’s Borkin, Jordan Lage’s Shabyelski, and Sarah Long’s Zinaida (Sasha’s covetous mother and Lebedv’s domineering wife) are just as narrowly defined. Soph Metcalf, Kimberlee Walker, and William De Merrit all overplay the clownish aspects of the supporting hangers-on. Only Spencer Aste as the comically confused Lebedev captures the prismatic nature of Chekhov’s befuddled Russians. His objectives are clear—to avoid conflict and live a peaceful life. His obstacles are his wife’s demanding nature and Ivanov’s persistent pessimistic outlook. To watch him struggle with bafflement against these barriers against his contentment is truly funny and sad. Too bad the rest of the production is not as ambiguously real.     

 

Aug. 24—Sept. 19. Initiative Productions at Lynn F. Angelson Theater, 136 E. 13th St., NYC. Running time: 100 minutes with no intermission. realivanov.com. 

Note: The Real Ivanov is not a production of CSC.