Word: ivanovic
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...IVANOV. Chekhov's first full-length play takes the pulse of a life-sick anti-hero consumed by boredom and narcotized by talk, the opiate of the Russian gentry. John Gielgud's acting and direction somewhat jangle the playwright's night music of the soul, but not enough to drive away a lover of Chekhov's genius...
...Ivanov. Chekhov's anti-heroes lead lives of tragic farce. Where the Marx Brothers once chopped up a train (in Go West) and fueled the engine with the kindling in order to keep going, Chekhov's pinched landowners would rather die than chop down their forests. They have champagne tastes-intellectually and spiritually-on vodka incomes. Their hearts are even emptier than their purses. The title character of Chekhov's first full-length play, a man in paralytic despair, candidly performs a self-autopsy: "I haven't the heart to believe in anything. I hope...
Morning brings him a chirping plague of creditors, the numbing guilt of not loving a wife (Vivien Leigh) who is dying of tuberculosis, and the intrusive ardor of a romantic girl who is pursuing her own phantom of love. Around Ivanov, vivid, vulgar, irascibly self-absorbed neurotics drown boredom in vodka and talk, the opiate of the Russian gentry. Ivanov punctuates their endless sentences with a bullet in his brain...
...problem is also an inherent one, inherent in the 62-year old Gielgud. Ivanov is supposed to be 35 at the time of his suicide. The surrender of youth to failure is part of his tragedy. Gielgud adds ten years to Ivanov and unavoidably softens the character's desperation. The confession of a man of 45 that he is turning gray is not poignant, but standard...
Whether as a result of Ivanov's age increase or not, one other key character is also played as too old. Count Shabelsky (Edward Atienza) is the 62-year-old uncle of Ivanov. Atienza plays him as a spry-minded, physically crumbling comedy figure. He gives up one attempt at seduction by falling exhausted into an armchair, resolving that dying would probably be a good thing as it required little energy. But by playing Shabelsky as a dodderer, Atienza lessens his dramatic impact. In Act III, when he is suddenly reminded of the duets he once played with Ivanov...