It is a commonplace to say that Ivan Turgenev’s A Month in the Country is the best play Chekhov did not write; but though Turgenev does anticipate Chekhov, it is still very much a romantic drama of its own times, the 1840s. Natalya is one of the great emotional roles of the 19th century; it is surprising that Verdi didn’t turn the play into an opera.
Patrick Marber’s truncated version, which he also directs, has a fine ensemble. The unhappily married Natalya (Amanda Drew) falls in love with her son’s 21-year-old tutor (Royce Pierreson), to the chagrin of a devoted, platonic friend (John Simm) whose relationship is generally recognized to be a portrait of Turgenev’s own ménage a trois.
Mark Gatiss is very droll as a money-grabbing, incompetent doctor. He has one of the funniest scenes, a singularly unromantic proposal of marriage, which does not need all the farcical physical comedy he brings to it.