December 11-17, 2003

theater

"Chekhov Mania"

by Toby Zinman

The first thing to say is that these short plays are really funny -- laugh-out-loud, mop-your-eyes funny. But since they’re all by Chekhov, they are also moving, charming and bittersweet. Studies in our all-too-human foibles, each of these one-acts is deliciously rich in character as well as ridiculously rich in situation. Chekhov always insisted his plays were comedies, although Three Sisters, Uncle Vanya and The Cherry Orchard are at least as tragic as they are comic -- that very quality of humanness we mean by "Chekhovian." These little plays give us a taste of that genius.

The productions are polished and professional; once again the Triangle Theater makes clever choices to maximize the stage space: With a few deft strokes (a picture on the wall, an ornate water goblet, a scarf across a table) the set evokes 19th-century Russia. The excellent actors do the rest.

"Chekhov Mania" offers three programs of seven short plays in varying combinations; the schedule is complicated, so call or check online (

www.triangletheater.com) for which are on when. I saw "The Night Before the Trial," "The Bear" and "The Tragedian in Spite of Himself." Two others, "The Proposal" and "The Jubilee," are being reprised -- Random Acts presented them during the Fringe Festival this past summer. The final two, "Swan Song" and "On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco," are new additions to the substantial Chekhovian repertoire that Jane Stojak and George DiCenzo, the company's artistic directors, are creating. What all these short plays have in common is weeping -- loud, fabulous, operatic weeping -- along with pistols (and the inevitable people inevitably threatening to shoot themselves and then inevitably don't).

"The Night Before the Trial" features Peter Miltz as a man stuck overnight in a bedbug-infested way station on his way to his trial where he is sure to be convicted and sent to Siberia. Just as he is planning to shoot himself -- there is a wonderful conversation with his revolver ("You old sweetheart," he calls it, and kisses it tenderly) -- a married couple turns up, travelers who are similarly trapped. A hilarious semi-seduction of the young wife ensues.

"The Bear" features Brad Panosian as a military officer who has come to collect money owed to him. The debtor's widow (Kati Kertesz, a serious weeper) has vowed fidelity to her philandering husband's memory and has refused to leave the house ever again despite the sensible advice of her steward (William Spangler, whose cough is a work of art). The grieving beauty unexpectedly enchants the officer, despite his having sworn off women.

"The Tragedian in Spite of Himself" is almost a monologue by Dennis Smeltzer as a beleaguered husband who catalogs his misery and grievances: a job that is boring him to death, a wife, away at their dacha, who sends him on endless errands ("martyrdom to petticoats and lampshades") and a friend too preoccupied to listen. He finally turns to a stuffed beaver on a table (with a heartbreakingly funny bandaged paw) to tell his fantasies of mayhem to: "This is not a vaudeville. This is a tragedy!"

Chekhov Mania

Through Dec. 28, Random Acts of Theater at the Triangle, 1220 N. Lawrence St., 215-763-0110.

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