How the Americans understood Turgenev

If educated Americans ask about their associations with Russian literature, they will definitely remember Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Chekhov. Many are familiar with Ivan Turgenev too. And his play “A Month in the Country” in the interpretation of the Classic Stage Company has been gathering full halls in New York for the second month already.

The production has been shown in English before - eleven times in theaters, and five films have been made based on the work.

But this time the Russian comedy of manners caused an unprecedented stir - so much so that there were practically no empty seats in the hall, and the show was extended for another ten days, until March 15. Moreover, tickets are not the cheapest - from 55 to 80 dollars.

This success is explained not least by the participation of famous actors in the production. The bored wife of a wealthy landowner, Natalya Isaeva, was played by the star of the series “Orange Is the New Black” Taylor Schilling. Mikhail Rakitin, who is unrequitedly in love with her, is Peter Dinklage, a celebrity from the series “Game of Thrones”.

The production is directed by Dinklage's wife Erica Schmidt. She began her career as an actress, and after a couple of years she switched to directing. Her first theatrical work was the musical comedy People Be Heard on the stage of the Playwrights Horizons theater in New York.

Interestingly, this trio has already put the Russian classics. In 2008, even before Schilling and Dinkledge became famous, they played Chekhov's “Uncle Van”.

Erika Schmidt and translator Christopher Jones worked on the “Month in the Village” for a long time.

Last year, they began work on their own adapted translation, because none of the previously made ones did not suit them. In order to better convey Turgenev's humor to the public, they replaced old English, which used to be used in translation, with a relatively modern one.

The plot of the play is a love quadrangle. Married Natalia falls in love with the home teacher of her son, Alexei Belyaev. She asks a family friend, Mikhail Rakitin, to help hide it from her husband. Rakitin himself is in love with Natalia. Also, young Vera is in love with her teacher, an orphan and a pupil of a family. She was played by actress Megan West, who, despite the shock of red hair and completely Celtic facial features, looked very harmoniously against the background of Russian birch trees, which constituted the scenery for the performance.

Birches, grasshoppers chirping and birds singing really resembled a Russian village in the summer heat. But some details for the convenience of the viewer were summed up under Western standards. For example, married ladies wore wedding rings on the ring finger of their left hand, and not their right hand, which could surprise Turgenev very much.

Perhaps it was thanks to this adaptation that the overwhelming majority of Americans sympathized with the heroes and reacted to the jokes with friendly laughter and spontaneous applause.

In the hall for two hundred places there were both elderly intelligent couples, bearded hipsters and girls with extravagant hairstyles. Students of New York theater schools came with notebooks and made notes on them throughout the performance, referring to the translation of the original Turgenev play.

As the “Forum” questions showed, the American public was genuinely interested in Russian culture in the hall. Some are fond of literature, some have been to Moscow and St. Petersburg, others are not against visiting Russia, despite the recent political upheavals.

A young couple Michael and Natali said they would like to produce more Russian color. Rachel, a private art teacher at a private school, shared her opinion that she was delighted with the play and the game Schilling, but Dinklage had disappointed her. Marvin Carlson, an elderly acting teacher at CUNY University, recalled that he had seen the play in Moscow in 1957, and he liked it. Even despite the fact that he does not understand Russian.

According to Carlson, world classics are timeless and understandable to people of different nationalities. Eternal themes - such as love and jealousy in “A Month in the Country”, guilt and repentance in “Crime and Punishment” or official corruption in “The Government Inspector” - are eternal and understandable on both sides of the Atlantic.