Brighton Year-Round 2023

The Proposal/The Bear translated by Stephen Mulrine

New Venture Theatre, Brighton

Genre: Classical and Shakespeare, Comedy, Drama, Farce, Short Plays, Theatre

Venue: New Venture Theatre Studio

Festival: Brighton Year-Round

Low Down

Review

If it’s vaudeville, play it as vaudeville, not Chekhov. Director Elaine Larkin has taken Chekhov at this word and accelerates his early (1889, 1888) The Proposal and The Bear almost to farce in this production at New Venture Theatre.

A world turning to spiders we hear in one play. This production certainly blows off any cobwebs in the supercharged hypochondria and absurdities Chekhov’s snared his plots with. Chekhov before Chekhov? Yes, though he’d written his apprentice Plotonov, authentic if rambling Chekhov, and his first version of Uncle Vanya, The Wood Demon had just appeared in 1887.

Stephen Mulrine’s translation of the plays are clean-limbed and support a high-energy reading. Five actors, one common to both three-handers, centre around the same thing: a proposal by means of offering to brain or blow each other’s brains out. Beatrice and Benedict have nothing on people levelling pistols at each other. Though here Chekhov has broken his own golden rule about guns before he made it. Probably as well.

The Proposal

Stepan Stepanovich Chubukov (Jerry Lyne) is inset as we enter, and has to be roused by neighbour Ivan Vassilievich (Simon Bigg) who’s come not to borrow money but propose to Stepan’s daughter.

The old man couldn’t be more pleased. Lyne’s consummate twists of conniving and joy (relieved not to be asked for money but his daughter) is one of the delights of the evening. Bigg is fantastically hypochondriac and we find it’s catching. His exaggerations palpitations hesitations and Ivan’s general emotional illiteracy are caught: as if idiocy on Prozac were catching too, as the cast’s imaginary ills proceed from him.

Natalya Stepanova (Sophie Gilkes-Tarsey) emerges, and Ivan can’t spit it out as the two instead descend to bizarre bickering over which family owns the Ox Field. They’ve almost come to blows when Stepan arrives on Ivan’s exit, and lets his daughter know it was meant to be a material proposal! Ivan’s called back in for a fresh dispute over the relative merits of their dogs to erupt.

Gilkes-Tarsey plays this all-out as farce with a wickedly arch energy the director requires. She enjoys expressively comic physicality, beautifully tailored to the absurd. Vocally it’s probably too much and only the consummate Lyne can handle what are fairly extreme demands on a recently-graduated cast. He modulates the absurd with a depth of character-reading that grounds his performance in both worlds.

By this time the level of shouting, which returns in the next play, pushes out some of the subtlety. Chekhov’s comedy, even farce, is still a serious business.

Happily Gilkes-Tarsey and Bigg deliver a blisteringly funny routine as a couple you can never hope to see married, even if Gilkes-Tarsey particularly makes a fine job of appearing to delight in the prospect of marriage. But to this man, who faints and wails out his palpitations (Biggs excels in this)? It’s farce to the finish.

The Bear

Yelena Ivanova Popova (Gilkes-Tarsey again) makes a dutiful job of grief, seven months on since her wife-beating faithless and doubtless much older husband has died. She takes a vow of celibacy, waited on by Luka (Chris Phipps, neatly observed, anxious, scornful and exasperated with everything) who wants to let in some air.

He tries not to let in Grigory Stepanovich Smirnov (Killian Wheeler) who’s come to ask settlement of Yelena’s late husband’s debts; as he has creditors who’ll ruin him tomorrow. Yelena can only manage the day after, with the Estate Manager not due back with money till then.

Wheeler’s consummate, tailoring his outrage, outbursts and furious self-accusations as he keeps noting how attractive and courageous Yelena is, in the same truth Lyne managed with Stepan. And imperiously orders water then vodka off the increasingly huffy Luca (a delicious moment when Luca lowers the tray to wrong-hand Grigory). Wheeler’s and Lyne’s are the two finest performances of the evening.

An ex-Lieutenant of artillery, Grigory’s the Bear of the title, bestowed by a furious Yelena when he won’t budge. Despite his furious misogyny, Grigory’s attracted to Yelena and the escalation and skirmishes leading up to something other than the proposed pistols are magnificent.

It’s a more subtle piece than its quickly-written successor (Larkin’s noted how quickly Chekhov could write these), though less structured towards farce set-up. It’s more organic. No wonder Walton wrote a one-act opera on it though.

Steve Hutton’s Studio set is worth noting as a star of the show, black with yellow facing and ornaments in The Proposal, and neon pink in The Bear. Carrie Hynds has sourced small miracles with props – chaise-longs, indeed one specially built, period furniture all displayed on a large cream carpet, with objects disposed like a hallucination of late 19^th century Russia, a surreal take. Even the wall décor shifts in the two productions, with heraldic details and moose’s heads shifting.

John Everett‘s lighting rather cleverly emphasises and dims at dramatic moments: it’s refreshing, unusual and varies what could be a normally bland Studio-lit experience. Elaine Larkin’s and Ian Black’s sound emphasises the amphetamine pop quality of this production.

Larkin’s production is all of a piece and like all original readings asks of Chekhov what he wants. Larkin also makes demands on her actors they mostly cope very well with, and two excel in: though some  of Chekhov’s subtleties – they exist even here – are bleached out.

We’ve been spoilt by two superb seasons with not a hint of a dud, and a great opening play this season. Since I wrote this, some voices have been raised, in some ways unfairly: with production values this good, a fresh if unsubtle vision, a mainly graduate cast with two consummate performances to leaven them, we should rather reflect on how spoilt we’ve been. Has the director asked too much of her team? Well, a production’s reach should sometimes exceed its grasp, with this much to enjoy. Firmly recommended though.

Published November 4, 2023November 4, 2023 by Simon Jenner