We don't know that he stands for Chekhov, and there's no need to force him into the role. “I'll plant new ones!” he cries gaily, quite beyond himself, as he runs. Well, of course he'll try to help save the trees. He kicks his heels in joy before hurrying to the conflagration, as mysteriously elated as he is transparently anxious. And he does do that, but very oddly indeed. Knowing him as we do, in Ian McKellan's beautifully intemperate performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, we expect him to leap to his feet in fury and race off to help quench the flames. The one most immediately concerned is Khruschov, impatient doctor to them all, passionate devotee of forestry, a chap in boots and peasant blouse who likes to help God create by planting birch trees and whose anger is unbounded when he contemplates the loss of so much as a sapling. TOWARD the very end of Chekhov's “The Wood Demon,” when three or four couples on a country estate are trying to rearrange the raggle‐taggle patterns of their lives, there is a flash fire in a patch of woods nearby.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |