Word: gielgud
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Chekhov's signature is the pistol shot, the report of suicide just before the final curtain. But most modern productions of Chekhov ignore the pistol shot, treating it as a melodramatic fillip tagged on to two and a half hours of detached psychological observation. Sir John Gielgud's production of Ivanov, however, takes the gun shot seriously. His choice of play, his acting in the title role, and his direction, all present a more involved and perhaps truer Chekhov than is currently fashionable...
...Gielgud is convincing. His Ivanov is always on the verge of cruelty to himself, and to others. In the opening scene he nervously admits to his dying wife's doctor (played in an appropriately intolerable, stiffly self-righteous fashion by John Merivale) that as she approaches death from TB he loves her less, that her illness is simply getting on his nerves. He knows the doctor must think him a monster but, he says, rubbing his hands in agitation, and raising his voice in irritation, he just can't help...
After tripping backward into a love triangle, Ivanov, queasy with guilt, lashes out directly at his wife (a convert from Judaism played by Vivien Leigh). Gielgud's fingers claw at the nonexistent handle of a desk drawer, his eyes hesitate. His voice pauses for an instant and then spills out the word, "Jewess!" Finally, he tells her the doctor thinks she will die very soon, and his flaring agitation dies down to remorse...
...short, Gielgud is never afraid to play Ivanov to the hilt. He fully, uses his absolute mastery of technique -- spewing lines at fantastic speed which still remain intelligible, of keeping his hands in constant motion. Just before his death, within the space of 90 seconds Ivanov goes through three distinct phases--black laughter, broken despair, and suicidal resolve. This is theatricality in the grand manner, and Gielgud carries it off. His Ivanov has the desperation and the savagery, and his suicide is not only believable, it is inevitable...
Something Missing. Before that time, the theater settled for the old teacup comedies, some Eliot and Rattigan works and some stunning performances of the classics by Guinness, Olivier and Gielgud. Taken singly, the plays that London offered were often first-rate achievements by first-rate actors and directors. Taken together, there was something missing, an ennui in the audience and on the stage itself. "Apart from revivals and imports," complained Critic Kenneth Tynan in 1954, "there is nothing in the London theater that one dares discuss with an intelligent man for five minutes." Looking back, Director Peter Brook says that...