Word: arkadina
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Voight, returning to Broadway for the first time in 25 years, gives an unshowy performance as the celebrity writer Trigorin that subtly conveys the character's lonely, inward-looking obsession with his craft. As the actress Arkadina, Tyne Daly stresses monstrous self-absorption. Not for Daly the customary dotty unawareness of how she puts down her son, a would-be avant- garde playwright; each belittling gesture is calculated cruelty. As the son, Ethan Hawke solves the play's pivotal problem, foreshadowing the youth's instability and making clear why he and not his at-wit's-end beloved, Nina, commits...
...staging by director Marshall Mason and set designer Marjorie Bradley Kellogg, the first act takes place outdoors, by a lake where Arkadina humiliates her son in his first artistic venture. Although the action gradually moves indoors, the trees never disappear. They stand throughout at the stage's edge, silent sentinels recalling the bitter moment that brings on all the play's ruin...
That the audience is able to view this scene with almost complete detachment proves how astray Estabrook's interpretation has gone. When the part requires it, she is magnificently flamboyant, but the director seems to have paid less attention to Arkadina's dramatic moments...
Among the other actors, Jeremy Geidt stands out as Sorin, Arkadina's brother. Geidt's substantial stage presence gives Sorin more weight than the character usually possesses. Geidt provides some of the funniest moments in the play...
...same can be said of Catherine Zuber's costume design. There is blatant symbolism at work: in one scene Arkadina is dressed in red, innocent Nina in white and morbid Masha in black. Although hardly a surprise when Nina turns up in the second act dressed in red, one's concentration is only momentarily diverted...