How
does a modern woman interact with a classic? Even if the actress can throw
herself into the role, can the audience ever see her without adding a modern
sensibility to how she is perceived?
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| Collen Corcoran as Anna and the ensemble (Photo by Dave Sarrafian) |
Between
Tolstoy’s Anna and Flaubert’s Emma Bovary (Madame Bovary by Gustave
Flaubert), I was predisposed to find marriage boring. and romance, while
inevitably tragic, to be one way for a woman to express her individuality. Yet,
both novels warn, the lover is not to be trusted, and the good man who waits
for you at home is to be admired even if he would stifle your very essence. Perhaps
Anna and Emma were the precursors to Thelma and Louise, warning women that too
much freedom is a dangerous thing.
A
newly conceived production of Anna at EgoPo Classic Theater company is
helmed by writer/director Brenna Geffers, whose work always provokes me to
reconsider how I view women’s roles on, and thus off, stage. This Anna, played commandingly
by Colleen Corcoran, is strong enough to endure anything but boredom and
betrayal, although she herself is a betrayer. Her husband, Count Alexei Karenin
(Carlo Campbell) is controlling and whining, while her lover Count Alexei
Vronsky (Andrew Carroll) is all youthful charm, baring his body even if he
can’t quite bare his soul.
The
three parallel love stories — Anna and Vronsky, her philandering brother Stepan
(Shamus Hunter McCarty) and his long-suffering wife Dolly (Amanda Schoonover),
and the love-sick Levin (Arlen Hancock) who longs for, and eventually wins,
Dolly’s sister Kitty (Maria Konstantinidies) — show us the pitfalls of loving
too much or too often. No one finds complete happiness, only an acceptance that
this is how things are.
The
play begins with a conceit — a group of actors, it seems, have agreed to tell
this story, casting themselves back a hundred years. Bell bottom trousers hint
at the 1970s, long gowns hint at the Russian past. The actors simultaneously
play their parts, narrate their stories, and often comment on their thoughts. The
shadow of current affairs lurks in the wings but never takes over the story.
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| Lee Minora and Arlen Hancock with umbrellas as ballgowns (Photo by Dave Sarrafian) |
The
acting is strong, the staging intriguing (scenic design by Aaron Crombie,
costume design by Natalia de la Torre), encompassing town and county, train and
ballroom. Oriental rugs and wood chips create a place that is everywhere at
once. Chiffon draped umbrellas transport us to a ball. A small suit on a hanger
is a child. Genders are fluid. A shawl and tiara transform a prince into a
princess, a jacket turns a woman into a man. The players hint at a train
through sound and motion, the swaying bumpy ride, the constant hiss and chug.
But what
is this Anna about? With today’s awareness of gender relations and the
position of women, what shocks the audience are not the kind of behaviors that
were once considered outrageous, but the restraints put upon women by men and
society. A woman can be shunned for having an affair. If a woman is divorced
she can never marry again, we learn, unless she initiates the process and
accuses her husband of infidelity. With all our modern freedoms, we can almost
forget what life used to be like for women. Even if modern politics and
policies seem to want to send us backward instead of forward.
The
ways in which men determine women’s lives and choices is always present. If a
husband divorces his wife, she can never remarry, unless she initiates the
process and proves his infidelity.
“Women never get to speak” says Dolly, yet there
is pride in learning a woman strapped herself with a bomb to try and kill the
Czar. It’s a surprisingly modern story from a Russian master, yet it sees women
only within their circumscribed roles as wife, mother, courtesan.
The
idea that these are women acting in a troupe transcends that limitation, but
not much is done with it until the end.
For
all its virtues, there was one jarring note — the sometimes raucous laughter
from the audience. Humor exists in this story, some from the staging, some from
the challenge of condensing a sweeping epic into a two hour play. But nothing
seemed to justify the sitcom-type laugh track that erupted on several occasions. Fortunately, the production was strong enough
to overcome those moments.
Turning
a Russian classic into an easy-to-follow narrative that engages and intrigues
is no easy feat. Geffers and the ensemble have done that admirably while making
the story and characters seem modern. It’s a production worth seeing and
pondering.
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