Forgotten plays and playwrights are the mission of the Mint Theater Company. Their track record of success is as good as any troupe in New York City. Over the past few years they unearthed writings by Miles Malleson. Both Conflict and Yours Unfaithfully were excellent plays given extraordinary productions. Checkhov/Tolstoy: Love Stories is a double bill of two short fiction works Mr. Malleson adapted for the stage. The results miss the mark. Shockingly, by a long shot.
The first play is The Artist based on a translation of Anton Checkhov’s An Artist’s Story. In the garden of a Russian country house, a painter has emerged from five weeks of brooding. Nicov is now ready to start painting after gazing out of ten big windows during that time. Genya, the well-to-do with nothing-to-do teenage daughter pretends to read a book. Both are lazy, dreamer types. Genya flirts with the older man.
Sister Lidia is the Type A overachiever of this home busily working at a local school and dispensary. Her motto is “there’s always more to do than the time to do it.” The comparison between the lazy and the motivated are in obvious conflict. Lidia pushes for Medical Relief Centers for the peasants. The painter objects. He prefers poor people should be released from the slavery that society has inflicted on them.
As directed by company founder Jonathan Bank, the pace is very slow. This line stood out to me: “why do we lead such a tedious and boring life.” The language is also awkward such as “I’m an artist. I’m peculiar.” The adaptation is stilted and the pacing drags. In this dull vacuum, a relationship between the painter and the teenager begins to uncomfortably bloom. Nicov has ideas about a new religion.
Alexander Sokovikov makes his U.S. theater debut with this production. His performance of Nicov is the best one of the evening. The angst and the creative vision are well developed. The characters of the daughters are far less realized. As love interest Genya, Anna Lentz is far too contemporary and did not really develop or display any chemistry with the painter. Brittany Anikka Liu’s Lidia comes across as a one dimensional suffragette-type spouting lines. Her considerable passion is not evident.
There is no intermission between the two plays. Michael is based on Tolstoy’s What Men Live By. This piece has been directed by Jane Shaw. She has done thirty-one shows at the Mint as Sound Designer. This is her first directing role. The play is an allegory which contains some welcome and eerie mysticism. The staging does not accomplish the mood of transformation as required by the script.
Simon (J. Paul Nicholas) goes out to buy sheepskin for the upcoming winter cold. He returns without the blanket. Instead, he brings home a naked man he found on the side of the road. Wife Matryona (Katie Firth) accuses him of a “vodka spree.” Michael, the arrival, does not speak. When he smiles, however, it’s “as if the sun shined behind his eyes.”
One year later Michael is now an excellent shoemaker and helping to grow the family business and fortunes. The ever present creepiness of the man continues. He seems to be able to see the future. Unlike The Artist, this second play looks back and embraces old religion rather than seeking something new. Themes of penitence and spiritual learning are considered.
That level of mystery and religious imagery is not realized at a high enough level. Malik Reed portrays Michael at first as if he were Lenny in Of Mice and Men. The script calls for a magical reckoning of spiritual otherworldliness. In this staging, there do not seem to be any dimensions beyond a basic telling of the story. Without the magic, the plot simply proceeds and ends. There’s a decent tale buried in the short play Michael about kindness, repentance and love. This lukewarm attempt did not make a case for needing this revival.
Chekhov/Tolstoy: Love Stories is playing at Theatre Row through March 14, 2020.