Triumphantonce again

A Month in the Country by Ivan Turgenev, adapted by Brian Friel and directed by Jonathan Kent at Chichester Festival Theatre

IN THE wrong hands, A Month in the Country can feel more like a year in the wilderness.

It has the potential to be dull and self-indulgent.

But not this production.

With a dazzlingly creative set and a host of beautifully polished performances, Chichester Festival Theatre has triumphed once more.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Indeed, artistic director Jonathan Church seems unable to put a foot wrong. This season has been possibly one of the best ever in the theatre’s long and distinguished history.

He has the knack of knowing precisely what will appeal to the Chichester audience.

And even when some of the choices at first glance appear surprising - not least this one - the final effect is so good one wonders why there was ever any doubt in the first place.

A Month in the Country is a tangled story of love - largely unrequited - one summer in the 1840s on a large Russian rural estate.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Natalya Petrovna, a chic, sophisticated but determined 29-year-old, is married to the older Arkady Islayev, a wealthy landowner. To relieve her boredom she amuses herself with the attentions of admirer Michel Rakitin but it is the arrival of the good-looking student Aleksey Belyayev as tutor to her son that really turns her head.

She falls head over heels in love with Aleksey, as does her young ward Vera.

From this develop wide-ranging emotional complications, misunderstandings and stratagems which are to tear family and friends apart and force two of the key players to leave.

Hugely controversial in its day, this production seems much tamer in the liberated western world of the 21st century. But the themes and many of the lines remain just as relevant as when they were first conceived.

Some masterful performances from Janie Dee as Natalya and Phoebe Fox as Vera.

But the real challenge for Chichester is to do even better next summer season. How do you surpass perfection?

Gary Shipton