Did you know that there was such a thing as a comedic, Russian Hamlet? I didn’t either. And there isn’t, kind of. At least not in the sense that the squishy, lovable Hamlet we all know and love hasn’t gotten a Ruski rewrite at any point in the recent past, unbeknownst to us. Rather, this September, Trinity Repertory Company will be kicking off its 2014-2015 season with Ivanov by Anton Chekhov in a new translation and adaptation by Curt Columbus, the company’s artistic director. Curt says the play is darkly comic, quite topical and, being “a big ensemble piece,” perfect for his troupe.
“It’s been eight years since we did Cherry Orchard,” notes Curt. “A number of audience members were saying, ‘When are you going to do Chekhov again?’ And the acting company wanted to do it. They very rarely request plays, all of them, at once.”
Curt says that he hadn’t really looked at the play until a couple of years ago, when, at the behest of the acting company, he began a translation. After two readings with the company in its off-season company workshops, Curt says he was able to take advantage of funding granted by the Pew Charitable Trust while he was down at the Arden Theater in Philadelphia last spring as they presented a production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, which he translated. “The money let us do readings of other Chekhov plays, because we had time. And I was able to sharpen the play up a bit and make it more produceable,” he says.
Curt says we can expect all of this to take place in a lush, musical landscape, similar to what the company did with The Grapes of Wrath last year. A house-band made up of actors and MFA students will be playing original music penned by student Ian McNeely, who is in the nine-person cast. Curt describes the music as “a little Tom Waits-y, a little Mumford and Sons,” and in support of the longstanding Russian troubadour tradition, which celebrates guitars and ballads and all that good stuff.
If it seems a little more inventive and interactive than the notions many of us have of Chekhov, that’s because that’s part of what Curt is trying to show audiences. “I’m trying to dispel this notion that Chekhov’s world view is all darkness and dreary and gray. This production is going to be so colorful, and it’ll tell people immediately that it’s not that. But he’s much more of a Buddhist than an Ayn Rand. He really believes in human nature,” says Curt. “There’s bad things that happen and good things that happen but they all have equal value in the eyes of an unminding universe. And that’s a beautiful philosophy that isn’t dark at all. It’s accepting.”
Ivanov by Anton Chekhov, September 4-October 5
Trinity Repertory Company. 201 Washington Street. 351-4242
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