Tourgueniev’s play “A month in the countryside” adapted with beautiful modernity by Clément Hervieu-Léger

If Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) rWatching a pale comedy of love today in streaming, he would undoubtedly cry in front of the poverty of the dialogues. But, let him be reassured, 150 years after his death, his movements of the heart are still as well translated by certain directors. Thereby Clément Hervieu-Léger, member of the Comédie-Française, brings back to the Théâtre des Célestins in Lyon the play of the Russian playwright A month in the countryside.

It is a bluffing adaptation of modernity with aesthetic references to Italian cinema of the second half of the 20th century and in the remarkable translation of the great playwright Michel Vinaver which establishes a bridge between the genius of Turgenev and contemporary theatre.

The story immerses the viewer in the torments of a Russian bourgeois family vacationing in a summer countryside scorched by the sun. In the property of Arkady and Natalia, routine dominates. But the arrival of Alexeï, the tutor hired to take care of little Kolia, will arouse amorous passions and explode family life where everyone has a well-defined place.

There’s Natalia Petrovna (Clémence Boué), the matriarch everyone in the house fears. She misses her bourgeois life. There is Rakitine (Stéphane Facco), Natalia’s platonic lover who takes a dim view of the arrival of a rival, or the brilliant family doctor, Ignati Ilitch Chpigelski (Daniel San Pedro), who is ready to favor in exchange for a horse. And then of course the false ingenuity, Alexaï Nikolaïtch Beliaev (Louis Berthélémy), who capsizes the hearts of women without letting anything show.

“It’s a play that was written in 1855, the time when we were still in full romanticism. And it’s a play that resonates with an incredible modernity, especially on the place of the woman, confides Clément Hervieu-Léger, member of the Comédie-Française, after the premiere. “When Arcady wonders ‘why not let Natalia free?’ And when, from the first act Natalia affirms that one can love two men at the same time, it is a way of thinking about the question of the couple, of love, of desire, in an extremely contemporary way.

The setbacks of this Russian family, which we imagine on the shores of the Black Sea in Odessa or Sochi, are made less bitter by the summer atmosphere sketched out on stage and by the irony and comedy of certain dialogues. An adaptation of which is aimed at a wide audience and which recalls the modernity of Turgenev, whom we see too often, adds Clement Hervieu-Leger,as a somewhat minor author compared to Chekhov, but that is a mistake. Chekhov himself was largely inspired by Turgenev’s theatre.

“A House in the Country”, by Ivan Turgenev
Director: Clément Hervieu-Léger Translation: Michel Vinaver
With: Louis Berthélémy, Clémence Boué, Jean-Noël Brouté, Stéphane Facco, Isabelle Gardien, Juliette Léger, Guillaume Ravoir, Mireille Roussel, Daniel San Pedro
Until November 19 at the Célestins theater in Lyon. Opening hours: 8 p.m., except Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 4 p.m. Release on Monday.