Arts

Chekhov without cry-babies

Ted Whitehead

The Cherry Orchard (Olivier) Saint Joan (Old Vic) The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin (Mayfair) `Chekhov is a second-rate writer and a willy wet-leg,' wrote the old champion of vitalism, D. H. Lawrence, and before we dismiss that judgement as typically rash and unfair we have to remember that many productions of Chekhov earlier in the century would have merited it. By emphasising emotion at the expense of comedy they drained the works of the subtle ironies that bubble beneath the text. Chekhov was well aware of the danger: hence his instruction that his characters should not be done as

ery-babies'. The new production of The Cherry Orchard at the Olivier accepts the challenge and wins hands down. We are encouraged to sympathise with the predicaments of the characters but even as we reach for the tissue paper we find ourselves laughing at some half-baked revelation or ludicrous affectation.

As the housemaid, for example, Susan Littler neatly back heels a door shut, but constantly assumes the feminine manner Fopied from her mistress: 'Oh, I've turned into a lady — I'm frightened of everything.' As the estate clerk, Nicky Henson, in graveyard suit and squeaky boots, is so desperately concerned to act correctly that

h. e is forever knocking things over and mak

mg a fool of himself; his way of courting the maid is to ask her whether she has read a history of civilisation. Dorothy Tutin plays Ranyevskaya as the genuine romantic — a sensitive soul with a compassion for others that lasts as long as it takes to express it. Robert Stephens doesn't seem quite at ease as her brother — not quite dizzy enough —but as he caresses a book-case, or prays for an

inheritance to land from the sky, he conveys the cultural pretensions and economic vul

nerability of the dying class. The champion of that class is Firs, the footman, crumbling into senility as he recalls the good old days When generals, not station-masters, came to the parties, yet reminding us of his peasant origins by his assertion that he has reached his age by regular doses of sealing wax — a masterly performance, this, by Ralph Richardson, not least because he refrains from dominating the stage when he so obviously could do so.

Susan Fleetwood plays Varya with a Muted but edgy emotion that becomes very Moving when she' finally has to accept that her chance of marriage is gone, and that her future is as a housekeeper in somebody else's house. Of the whole family, the only Member who we can believe will adapt to the new order is the daughter Anya (Judi Bowker) who is to tackle an independent life as a schoolmistress (the classic female escape route from the family). The new order is represented, chillingly, by Derek Thompson's Yasha, the footman with a sophisticated contempt for the 'ignorance' of Russian life, a cynical parasite with an eye for the main chance; and Ben Kingsley's Trofimov, described in Michael Frayn's translation as a 'wandering' student, who is the only character with a political perspective but who is constantly sinking on the wings of his rhetoric. And of course Lopakhin, the businessman — Albert Finney at his best as the bull in the drawing room. Finney is perfectly equipped to convey the tensions of a man gifted with immense energy and determination facing the inertia and indecisiveness of a class which has outlived its privileges — complicated by his love for Ranyevskaya and his guilt about his own lack of culture: he can't finish a book, and he recommends a bottle of champagne on the ground that it cost eight roubles.

So the cultured lack energy, and the energetic lack culture:No wonder Chekhov was so ambivalent about his characters, or that they still speak to us so powerfully: we still have the problem.

It would be difficult not to enjoy John Dove's production of Saint Joan, which the Prospect company have brought back to

their Old Vic season. Robin Archer's design provides a, clean, simple frame for the swiftly developing action, the heroics are played down, and the abstract debates real ised as flesh-and-blood conflicts. Most of the performances are good, and some are superb. Robert Eddison makes a for midable Inquisitor, unyielding in his argument but winning our sympathy for his determination to redeem the heretic rather than to condemn. There's a funny, touching performance by Ronnie Stevens as the Dauphin, resolute only in his cowardice.

Bernard Lloyd makes Bishop Cauchon's dogmatism sound like reason itself, while Geoffrey Palmer cloaks the Earl of War wick's ruthlessness with a thoroughly English urbanity; between them, they come as close to sustaining the long-winded debate of the fourth scene as any actors could be

expected to do. The triumph of the evening is, of course, Eileen Atkin's Joan, true peasant in her blunt dialect and nononsense manner, true saint in her inflexible conviction of her spiritual mission — bewildered by the Church's accusation of heresy, and desperately moving at the moment of her abjuration. I don't believe in her 'voices' tiny lame than Shaw did, but I never doubted that she did.

Add to all this the old Shavian optimism, the belief in the life-force triumphing — at whatever cost to the individual life — and shattering obsolete patterns of _thought and behaviour, and you have all the elements of a splendidly inspiring evening in the theatre. That's where my reservations begin. Shaw travesties history to make his point that the fault is not in our stars and not even in our hearts but in our obsolete institutions — or rather, in our irrational adherence to them. He invests the Inquisition with a nobility it didn't possess, and paints Cauchon as a loyal defender of the faith rather than as the vicious and devious opportunist that he actually was. As usual, he gives the best arguments to the devil. It's a sympathetic trick, and a craft piece of dramaturgy, designed to make his demolition of the arguments the more convincing; but in insisting that there were 'no villains' in the tragedy of Joan's death, and that her opponents were simply misguided, he is deliberately blinding himself to human savagery. I suppose it's the price he pays for his professional optimism; but I can't help recalling the pre-war film clip •in Before Hindsight, in which Shaw is seen breezily re-assuring the British people about Hitler and advising them not to get alarmed. Like many others, he shrank from acknowledging the barbaric potential of the Superman when he actually arrived.

Perhaps, as Trotsky suggested, Shaw would have benefited had his 'Fabian fluid' been mixed with a little of Jonathan Swift's blood.

There's a very topical play at the Mayfair, The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin, taking in as it does transvestism and child pornography. The transvestite is a middle-aged elocution teacher, Robert O'Brien, who struggles to resist seduction by a twelveyear-old pupil, Benjamin Franklin, who gives him pornographic photographs of himself. Act One is set in The Shakespeare Speech and Drama Academy, which Robert runs in Sidney. We see Robert at work and at transvestite play, until a neighbour reports him to the police and the rednecks invade. Act Two, eight years later, is set in an asylum to which he has been committed: his appeals fail, he listen to the familiar voices of bigotry condemning him on a radio phone-in (I'm speaking as a mother' — that voice of doom!), and he takes an overdose of Mandrax. If the first act goes on a bit, the second doesn't go on enough. But the Australian author, Steve J. Spears has a new and original voice, and the solo performance by Gordon Chater is both furiously funny and extremely sad.