THIS IS THE PLAY WITHOUT A TITLE (The Far Away Plays)****

 

By Dave

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23fpdOl28lk 

Available until: Unknown

We’ve known about The Far Away Plays for a while but this is only the second time we’ve actually watched one. I doubt it will be the last. Judging from the standard of this play, we’ve missed some really great performances.

This version of This is the Play Without a Title was written by Simon Harris but it’s actually based on a play by Anton Chekhov. Chekhov didn’t much like it, it was never performed in his lifetime and he thought it had been destroyed but his sister had hidden it. After Chekhov’s death the play was rediscovered and performed. The work was untitled but an article in the Sydney Theatre magazine suggests it might have originally been called Fatherlessness, and it has been presented under many titles including A Long Play Without a Title, Chekhov’s First Play, Platonov, which is the name of the character at the centre of it all, and rather more confusingly, Wild Honey in an adaptation by Michael Frayn. Chekhov’s other works include A Story Without a Title so maybe that influenced the sort of title this play is usually given.

It’s not the terrible play it’s often thought of, I actually really like it but a lot of people feel it’s impossible to stage. The original is over six hours long so it’s fair to say that’s a bit excessive. Simon Harris has cut it down to just under two and a half hours which cuts out most of it but there is nothing obviously missing and it all makes sense most of the time which is what you’d expect from a Chekhov play! There might be various plot twists and characters missed out but everything in Simon’s adaptation fits together and that’s good enough for me.

A group of people meet at the home of Anna Petrovna, a widow. They’re all young and in debt. Many of them are also in love. Anna’s stepson Sergei is married to Sofya. Platonov is married to Sasha. They all quite happy considering they’re in a Chekhov play. But Platonov has a strange magnetism about him which no woman is able to resist and they all throw themselves at him in various ways before he finally chooses one. The play verges between high drama and comedy and it’s great fun.

Alexander Vlahos is incredible as Platonov. The thing about a role like this is that unless the actor really is irresistible, the women are going to look like total idiots throwing themselves at him and it’s not going to be easy making him irresistible because he doesn’t exactly behave well. But Alexander is brilliant. He brings out Platonov’s charm but also gives him a really appealing vulnerability and makes him into the sort of man a lot of women – and men too – want to ‘save’. But the role is much more complicated than that. There are so many facets to Platonov’s character and the way Alexander brings them altogether as a coherent and surprisingly likeable character is really quite astounding.

The women in his life might have similar tastes but they have been brilliantly differentiated by this very strong cast. Laura Rogers ensures the description of her character Anna as ‘magnificent’ is no less than the truth. Even when she’s as much under Platonov’s spell as everyone else, she is dignified and remarkable. Alex Clatworthy’s Sofya is petulant and dissatisfied but still quite sweet… some of the time. Pinar Öğün’s Maria is unhappy, vulnerable and fascinating. Finally we have the quiet and downtrodden Sasha (the mother of Platonov’s child, he really is a bit of a rat) who is sympathetically portrayed by Annes Elwy. It’s impossible to say how close the adaptation is to the original but whoever created these four very different women has done a great job.

This is the Play Without a Title includes a lot of drama and tragedy, as you’d expect, but there’s also a lot of comedy, both in the almost farcical nature of Platonov’s apparent inability to turn around without coming face to face with another rampant female, and in some genuinely amusing scenes, mostly involving Nigel Barrett’s hilarious Nikolai. His love of a good joke is infectious. There’s also a great scene where they’re all behaving like drunken idiots. It was like being back at uni.

On the other end of the spectrum, Iwan Davies gives us some exaggerated but still moving tragedy in his characterisation of Sergei. Completing the cast are Musa Trevathan as an antagonistic and creepy Isaac and Rhys Rusbatch as Osip, probably the most cheerful hired thug I’ve ever seen.

This is the Play Without a Title might not be Chekhov’s masterpiece… but it’s probably a lot more fun than Chekhov’s masterpiece. It’s a crazy play but I loved it.