Chekhov’s repertoire is an inexhaustible source of inspiration, even parody, for playwrights. His disenchanted characters, both deeply touching in their humanity and laughable in their self-pity and inability to change their lives, are our contemporaries. We saw in Montreal updates of his texts by the American Aaron Posner (cave bird cr#%#) and Germany’s Rebekka Kricheldorf (Villa Dolorosa).
Christopher Durang, he does not adapt a play in particular, but borrows figures and themes from the work of the Russian author to feed his comedy. A kind of Chekhovian concentrate where we recognize elements of the plot of The Seagull and of The cherry orchard. Fifty-somethings Sonia and Vania feel like they’ve wasted their lives after spending it caring for their parents.
They vegetate bickering in the family home – evoked here by the frame of a house, a decor by Pierre-Étienne Locas – that their eldest, Macha (the dazzling Sylvie Léonard), risks selling. The visit of this one, a narcissistic movie star dragging in her wake her young lover, Spike (perfect Alex Bergeron), an aspiring actor full of seduction and vacuity, causes a stir…
nostalgic tirade
V invites us to a curious universeania and Sonia and Masha and Spike. The author of Neurosis à la carte mixes various ingredients to make people laugh. In addition to an affectionate parody of the Chekhov world, it makes reference to Greek tragedy: the housekeeper (Joëlle Paré-Beaulieu) is a Cassandra who multiplies grandiloquent oracles. He also mocks the clichés of the star system Hollywood. (Even if Maryse Warda’s translation transposes the piece to Quebec, with several recognizable references.)
Add to that costumes of Snow White, Masha insisting on taking her siblings to a disguised ball – which we will only see in excerpts on video. Between the costumes on the one hand (successful creations by Cynthia St-Gelais) and the quasi-stripteaseof Spike on the other, the comedy thus often leans on superficial springs rather than on the characters. The show, directed by Marc St-Martin, however, offers tasty numbers of performers. Nathalie Mallette, above all, composes an unpayable curmudgeon. Rebecca Vachon has the optimistic freshness of Nina.
But with Vania’s bitter monologue (convincing Roger La Rue), the play gives us its most Chekhovian scene. His diatribe against change and modern technologies gives further access to his drama. This tirade, filled with nostalgia (the show also opens nicely with family films supposed to evoke the childhood of the protagonists), and fear of the future highlights the generational gap between the characters, as well as the disillusion related to the passage of time and aging. Very Chekhovian themes.