Three Days in the Country

by Patrick Marber based on A Month in the Country by Ivan Turgenev

seen at the National Theatre (Lyttleton) on 21 October 2015

Directed by Patrick Marber and designed by Mark Thompson, this version of Turgenev's play stars Amanda Drew as Natalya, John Light as Arkady, John Simm as Rakitin, Lily Sacofsky as Vera and Mark Gatiss as Shpigelsky.

The arrival of a young tutor at a Russian provincial country house triggers various crises amongst people who have been living together without formally acknowledging their feelings for a very long time. Arkady married Natalya on impulse - his friend Rakitin was with him when he first saw her, and wishes that he had acted first. Now he is a visitor to the estate, hardly able to bear being there but unable to keep away. Both Natalya and her ward Vera fall for the new tutor, and meanwhile there are subplots in which an unprepossessing neighbour wishes to marry Vera, while the doctor Shpigelsky makes an extraordinary proposal to a spinster in the household.

In short, the country house is once again a perfect microcosm for the leisured class in nineteenth-century Russia. In this version, the scene is indicated only by the furniture on stage, with a backdrop of spacious countryside and some transparent panels to indicate walls. The cast, when not actually in a scene, often sit against the backdrop or at the sides on plain wooden chairs, not really watching, but not entirely absent either. It is a clever reminder that aristocrats were almost never alone even when they thought they were, and particularly in Russian households where hangers-on were an accepted feature of the landscape.

In this strange hothouse atmosphere the characters often wear their hearts on their sleeves, but equally they seem schooled not to notice it in one another. Natalya is on the verge of tears, but within the social conventions it could be assumed that she is just suffering from nerves. Amanda Drew played her nervousness and rapture with great delicacy. Rakitin generally disguises his feelings with sardonic jibes, but eventually reveals the depths of his anguish in an extraordinary speech of warning to the young and naive tutor, a deflection from pouring out his heart either to Natalya or to Arkady. John Simm moved from social poise to desperation and distress marvellously well.

The performances are superbly nuanced and emotionally convincing. Marber's acute awareness of the cross-purposes and wilful misunderstandings that can blight people's lives works just as well in his re-imagining of Turgenev's play as in his own contemporary pieces. Though we can laugh at the absurdities, we can also appreciate the pain, and the play often moves from high comedy to stark seriousness in moments. Mark Gatiss as the doctor wrecks his attempt at a romantic proposal by putting out his back, which leads to a grotesque but hilarious scene as he attempts to right himself. When his proposal is later rejected, he does not seem overly put out, in contrast to the histrionics triggered by the tutor's actions.

There is a surprisingly moving ending, when the remaining older tutor quietly comforts the young boy in his charge, and starts to teach him to play cards. When the boy remarks that he has been dealt three hearts, the older man simply says, 'Good - you will need them.' Somehow, after the mayhem both comic and melancholy that we have witnessed, this is deeply touching.