Word: lermontov
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...Hero" is Mikhail Lermontov, a literary contemporary of Pushkin who was much affected by Pushkin's life, his work, and particularly by the circumstances of the duel in which Pushkin is killed. The action of the play moves back and forth from Lermontov's own life and his more-or-less conscious attempts at emulating Pushkin to the life of Gregory Pechorin, Lermontov's idealized self and the protagonist of his novel, which bears the same title as the play...
...role of Lermontov, as Shea has drawn it, is exceedingly difficult because it bends back upon itself. The actor must be, sometimes almost simultaneously, Lermontov, Lermontov creating Pechorin, Pechorin as a character in his own right, Lermontov manipulating Pechorin--and in the end, perhaps, Pechorin manipulating Lermontov. The perspective is at times a bit like looking into one of two opposed mirrors, as you try to sort out the images and assign them to the figures, and a lesser actor than Bro Uttal would have made himself very dizzy in the attempt. It is no mean dramatic feat to slip...
...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...
...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...
...other figures that crowd about Lermontov-Pechorin, the most striking are Czar Nicholas and Bekhmetyev, the head of his Secret Police and Varvara's husband. James Burt makes the Czar a clever and proper bastard, and an amusing one. Jason Kanter, as Bekhmetyev, manages to create the figure to which, in some ways, Lermontov aspires, a man who lives by "intellect alone," devoid of emotion, manipulating and destroying the lives of others with absolute control...