Kyle Fabel and Suzy Kohane in The Primrose Path. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.
Playwright Crispin Whittell and the determined Guthrie cast endeavor to turn Ivan Turgenev‘s melancholic, poignant, dreamy, and oh-so-Russian novel Home Of The Gentry into a brisk, bracing and breezy drawing room comedy — and they, for the most part, succeed.
The story of The Primrose Path (at the Guthrie, through June 15) will be familiar to devotees of 19th century Russiana: wealthy nobleman Lavretsky returns to his gone-to-seed estate in deepest darkest rural Russia to lick his wounds after a turbulent 8 years in Paris. There he meets Elizaveta, daughter of his not-as-silly-as-she-seems cousin Maria. The hyper-religious Elizaveta is drifting into a loveless match with the breath-takingly self-centered Panshin. Lavretsky hesitates (like so many Russian heroes, Lavretsky suffers from paralyzing ambivalence) then decides to save her.
I’ll stop here, not so much because I don’t want to ruin the play for you, but because the story doesn’t really provide the heat in The Primrose Path; this comes from the louche, over-the-top acting. The best work is turned in by Guthrie stalwarts Nathaniel Fuller and Sally Wingert. Fuller is hootingly funny as Lavretsky’s insubordinate, crusty, scratching-under-his-lice-ridden-wig servant. As Maria, Wingert does her patented big-skirted comic fussbudget to brilliant effect. Familiar? Maybe, but does any performer on either side of the pond do it better? No, and as always with Wingert, an undercurrent of raw ambition and cheerful nastiness gives her performance substance.
And then there is Hugh Kennedy as Panshin. Perhaps not quite a stalwart (he’s getting there) Kennedy delights as the slicked down, mud-puddle shallow, charming Panshin, with his brilliant (not) singing, his narcissistic determination to destroy Elizaveta’s life with cloying affection. Director Roger Rees knows what a treasure he has and gives Kennedy enchantingly long zig-zaggy entrances. I was happy whenever Kennedy appeared.
As the wanna-be lovers Levretsky and Elizaveta, newcomers Kyle Fabel (in from Gotham) and Suzy Kohane do fine work — their scene in the boat thrills. But I confess I wasn’t convinced that they were in love. I didn’t truly buy into Elizaveta’s religiosity. Too often, Lavretsky’s paralysis seemed bland and static (though his sudden outburts really made me laugh).
But this isn’t entirely Fabel’s and Kohane’s (or Rees’s) fault. When The Primrose Path evokes Turgenev it sometimes falls flat. His meditations on love (“The path to happiness runs through love”) or religion (“I want to give my life to God”) feel forced, unconvincing. The production is frothy, super-energized; often Turgenev gets lost. Is this really such a loss, though, with so much superb acting?
Resourceful helmster Rees pulls focused performances out of the cast and his designers (led by set designer Neil Patel) have niftily created a world both bleak and funny. The play flows wonderfully and the (almost) ever-present piano (along with the terrific work of sound designer C. Andrew Mayer and composer Wayne Barker) gives The Primrose Path musical resonance.
Note: An Iliad opens this week in the Dowling, featuring the ever-excellent Stephen Yoakum.
For more info about John Olive please visit his (recently updated) website.