2008 Woodie Awards
Theater Review: 'A Month in the Country'
Russian play radiates heartwarming sincerity
By: Erin Duley
Issue date: 3/1/07 Section: Reviews
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A month in the country would be long enough for anyone if it was spent with the characters of Ivan Turgenev's Victorian-era play. Brimming with hysterical fits and lascivious gestures, the Webster Conservatory's energetic production of "A Month in the Country" achieves moments of brilliance amid soap opera antics.
Set in the late 1800s, the play takes place in a grand estate in Russia where a family and their single friends are spending the summer together. It's apparent from the first scene that the lady of the house, Natalya (Rebecca Kloha), is up to something. As she paints the portrait of Michel (Daniel Ford), who's stretched out before her like her personal Adonis, Natalya comes back to reality when her mother-in-law asks her where her husband is.
Left to her own devices by her good-natured spouse, Natalya is conducting a clandestine affair with Michel when her son's new 21-year-old tutor Aleksey (Charles Sydney Hirsh) arrives. Michel and Natalya plan to "polish" the unrefined young man over the summer, but it soon becomes obvious Natalya would like to do something else with him. Standing in her way is her 17-year-old ward Vera (Ashley Price), whom Natalya considers a rival for Aleksey's affection.
Channeling Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (the original desperate housewife), Natalya constantly pursues men, but she's never content with their love. Kloha expertly handles this role in the first half of the play. Cunningly maintaining one lover while enticing another, Kloha remains poised in her elaborate costumes all the while. The scene where Natalya and Aleksey stumble upon Michel in the garden is evidence of this skill.
That said, the first half of "A Month in the Country" is tediously melodramatic. All the scheming and stewing outweighs the brief comedic moments, especially during the soliloquies delivered by Natalya and Michel. Unnecessary and oddly schizophrenic, the speeches neither reveal anything nor advance the plot.
Fortunately, the second half of the play far outshines the first, beginning with the jokester Dr. Shpigelsky (Matt Timme) openly confessing his feelings to his girl, Lizaveta (Miriam Reuter). Such frankness is refreshing after all the other characters' charades and sets the tone for the rest of the play. See the play, but know that the reward for making it through the histrionic beginning awaits in the confrontations the characters encounter when Natalya's secrets are exposed.
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