Word: bekhmetyeva
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Dates: during 1969-1969
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...contrast to Lermontov stand Doctor Werner, his good friend, and Varvara Bekhmetyeva, his mistress, who pass through the novel unchanged. Michael Tratner, as Werner, plays from this vantage point with great skill, creating a physician who is solid and sensible, a man who has his head screwed on the right way. In doing so, he becomes the sorely-needed link between Lermontov's reality and his illusions, a function Lermontov becomes increasingly less able to fulfill himself...
WHILE SIMILARLY adding continuity, Robin Solit is able to simulate all the characteristics and mannerisms a generally abused mistress should have, save only outraged pride. Once she has mastered the indignation of a woman scorned, her Madame Bekhmetyeva, will be a completely believable figure...
Because, both in the novel and as her self, Ekaterina Sushkova is intellectually overpowered by Madame Bekhmetyeva, there is a natural tendency to underrate the actress portraying her. It is a measure of Michael Curtin's achievement that Ekaterina-Princess Mary tends to embarrass the female members of the audience with her simplicity and naivete. Perhaps in their defensive intellectual self-consciousness they failed to appreciate that her Ekaterina is the only sort of girl a man like Lermontov could "love," precisely because she would never threaten him intellectually...
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