Ivanov

A dazzling portrait of a restless man.  Treading a fine line between broad comedy and tragic melodrama, Ivanov is the most accessible of Chekhov’s plays. Written when Chekhov was only twenty-seven, Ivanov is a dazzling portrait of a man too intelligent and too bored to endure his provincial life. The brilliant, restless Nikolai Ivanov is plagued with guilt and frustration when he finds himself drawn to a beautiful young girl who threatens to destroy the moral foundations of his world. Directed by Yuri Yeremin, Artistic Director of the Pushkin Theater.

SYNOPSIS

Brilliant, restless Nikolai Ivanov, a rural landowner, is increasingly exasperated with his provincial life, the stupidity of his colleagues and neighbors, and his wife, Anna, a converted Jew who is slowly dying of tuberculosis. When Lvov, Anna’s doctor, accuses Ivanov of worsening his wife’s condition with his angry temper and periods of depression, the enraged Ivanov leaves for a dazzling party at the Lebedev estate, where he finds companionship, gossip, and Sasha Lebedev, a romantic young girl who quickly falls in love with him. Anna secretly follows Ivanov to the party, where she surprises her husband and Sasha in an embrace. Caught between mistress and dying wife, Ivanov is sucked into an ever-deepening gloom of introspection that leads to inevitable tragedy.

Performed in repertory with The Idiots Karamazov.