|
 A
celebration of love, in two different keys - Next Stage presents two
one-act plays by Brian Friel. The dark humour of Friel’s romantic comedy
The Yalta Game (based upon Chekhov’s finest love story "Lady with
a Lapdog") subtly teases the audience but his brilliant updating of
The Bear, a rumbustious battle-of-the-sexes farce, ensures that the
evening ends with fireworks – and pistols! Therapy for lovers of
all ages.
On the
seafront of the beautiful Crimean resort of Yalta, veteran philanderer
Dmitri Gurov fishes for women and treats love as a game that he knows
all too well how to play to his advantage. But when he reels in
his latest victim, Anna (and her cranky mongrel), he gets a lot more
than he fished for .... and it’s all too clear why the dog can’t stand
him. Against all the odds, Brian Friel turns Chekhov’s melancholy
love story into a touching and imaginative theatrical game and yet one
that does more than justice to the delicacy of the original.
By contrast,
The Bear releases all the carnival energies of an earthy farce
and yet succeeds in being a love story. Friel updates Chekhov’s
battle-of-the-sexes farce into a surprisingly topical piece where the
sexes are invited to laugh at each other and themselves. Elena
Popova, an attractive widow, has imprisoned herself in the rituals of
excessive mourning for her late husband while determined to repress all
knowledge of his infidelities. Luka, her frail and faithful
manservant, has so far failed to make her face reality. Grigori
Smirnov, retired Lieutenant of Artillery, is a human Molotov cocktail on
a very short fuse. It seems that he has not been paid for his hay ....
lately. |
