{"id":16818,"date":"2015-03-15T15:02:11","date_gmt":"2015-03-15T22:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=16818"},"modified":"2015-03-15T15:02:11","modified_gmt":"2015-03-15T22:02:11","slug":"ensemble-cast-of-12-enlivens-updated-turgenev-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/ensemble-cast-of-12-enlivens-updated-turgenev-comedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Ensemble cast of 12 enlivens updated Turgenev comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Woody’s [rating: 3]<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Ensemble cast of \u201cA Month in the Country\u201d includes (left to right) Kim Bromley as Anna, Robyn Wiley as Lizaveta, Mark Shepard as Herr Schaaf, Ben Orega as Michel and Shannon Veon Kase as Natalya. Photo by Robin Jackson.<\/p>\n

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Shannon Veon Kase stars as Natalya, and Tom Hudgens portrays Arkady, in Ivan Turgenev\u2019s classic comedy \u201cA Month in the Country.\u201d Photo by Robin Jackson.<\/p>\n
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Zach Stewart (Alexsey) and Emily Ludlow (Vera) toy with kite in \u201cA Month on the Country.\u201d Photo by Robin Jackson.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Sophisticated Natalya, 29, is having a premature midlife crisis.<\/p>\n

So she flits between rage and passion.<\/p>\n

She ignores the steady, boring love of her husband, Arkady, and the fawning adoration of a friend\/wannabe lover, Michel, only to fall for Alexsey, her young son\u2019s na\u00efve 21-year-old tutor.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the heart of \u201cA Month in the Country,\u201d a lightweight comedy of manners weighed down by a touch of the mustiness I should have expected from a play penned in the mid-1800s by Ivan Turgenev, Russian novelist famed for \u201cFathers and Sons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet the ensemble cast of Ross Valley Players largely keeps things effervescent and, through its professionalism, overcomes the sluggish pacing the playwright built in.<\/p>\n

Not to mention his repetition.<\/p>\n

The dozen community theater thespians were good enough, however, to ward off my sporadic desire to snooze.<\/p>\n

I admired, too, other elements of the play adapted in 1992 by Irish dramatist Brian Friel (a Tony Award-winner for \u201cDancing at Lughnasa\u201d):<\/p>\n

\u2022 Friel\u2019s updated language (\u201cI\u2019m not one of his college sluts\u201d).<\/p>\n

\u2022 Costume designer Michael A. Berg\u2019s fetching women\u2019s attire (a calculated contrast with his unexciting men\u2019s formal ware).<\/p>\n

\u2022 The artistic accomplishments of Ken Rowland, who\u2019s created more than 100 extraordinary set designs for the company since 1982 but out-extraordinaried himself with this show\u2019s elegant ebony-and-rose vision of a posh country estate (universal enough to have been located in the Hamptons as easily as Russia).<\/p>\n

\u2022 Director James Nelson\u2019s brave choice to absent anticipated Russian accents while not limiting actor Ben Ortega\u2019s Hispanic inflections in the role of Michel \u2014 and then including comedic German dialect by Mark Shepard as Herr Schaaf (a character with a penchant for malapropisms such as calling himself \u201ca lecher\u201d when he means archer).<\/p>\n

Unusual, besides, is the use of offstage actors mouthing interior musings for several characters.<\/p>\n

Particularly outstanding performances are turned in by Shannon Veon Kase as Natalya; Wood Lockhart, the veteran workhorse of the RVR troupe as Dr. Shpigelsky, a \u201cbitter, angry peasant\u201d hanger-on who prefers being a matchmaker; and Ortega.<\/p>\n

Despite the farcical facets of \u201cA Month in the Country,\u201d Turgenev\u2019s pre-Chekhovian thesis might be summarized by one character declaring \u201cI\u2019m afraid all love is a catastrophe\u201d and another proclaiming \u201cwhen you find yourself enslaved by love\u2026you\u2019ll know what real suffering is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cynical? Perhaps.<\/p>\n

Snarky?<\/p>\n

Without doubt.<\/p>\n

But great fodder for what advance publicity tells us \u201cA Month in the Country\u201d does \u2014 let us laugh at our own foibles (and sometimes misguided appetites).<\/p>\n

And yes, the 150-minute period piece is long, as well as long-in-the-tooth.<\/p>\n

But that having been said, it\u2019s ultimately as cheery as the recorded bird sounds played before the show starts.<\/p>\n

“A Month in the Country\u201d plays at The Barn Theatre, Marin Art & Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Ross, through April 12. Evening performances, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Thursdays, 7:30 p.m. Matinees, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $14 to $29. Information: (415) 456-9555 or www.rossvalleyplayers.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Contact Woody Weingarten at voodee@sbcglobal.net<\/a>\u00a0or www.vitalitypress.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Woody’s [rating: 3] Sophisticated Natalya, 29, is having a premature midlife crisis. So she flits between rage and passion. She ignores the steady, boring love of her husband, Arkady, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"