Piece Ivanov is the first performed dramatic work by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov; in it, in various ways, germs are contained and Cherry tree i Three sisters i Uncle Vanja i Galeb, and the piece itself is actually only a shade less significant than the quartet of key, mature pieces by Chekhov. Maybe not that much. Actually, if there wasn't ivanova there wouldn't have been either, or if the writer, after a somewhat unusual and unpleasant experience with the premiere of this piece, had drawn a different conclusion from everything. The famous French biographer Henri Troyat writes in his biography of Chekhov (from the SFRY language it was only translated into Slovenian: Znanstveno in publicistično centrum, Ljubljana 2001) that during the rehearsals before the play's premiere, the writer became very nervous because he had the impression that the band-headed, superficial and the eternally drunk actors, but they don't understand anything about his characters and therefore they are not able to play them properly, and the director certainly does his own thing; the Moscow premiere went like no other before, half the audience shouted "bravo!", the other half whistled; criticism mostly cut her down. It was quickly removed from the repertoire. Fortunately, Chekhov still understood what he wrote, and sought new homes for the piece, at home and abroad. The rest, so to speak, is history.
Ivanov therefore, it was created in the eighties of the nineteenth century; Russia, and especially the Russian intelligentsia, is oppressed by the barren and reactionary dictatorship of Alexander III, time seems to have stopped (isn't that the main feature of the so-called oriental despots - unyielding time freeze?), nothing can and must not be thought or done, in short: torment to the spirit. Chekhov is never a mere "social commentator", so that's not the case either Ivanova, but the circumstances of the time and place of creation of this work are not accidental. It is even less accidental, however, that today we can completely ignore them, without missing anything fundamentally important. This is where it comes from Ivanov a representative of what is best in Chekhov, and what, again, makes that Chekhov - a provincial doctor and newspaper wage earner tormented by dryness and hemorrhoids, who died at the age of forty-four, who was so infinitely distant from any aspiration to Greatness - consistently the greatest among writers , by no means only dramatic: powerfully, profoundly, and completely unpretentiously grasped, illuminated, explained the essence of the human experience of living, on every level that is important for the mind and heart reader/spectator, and by a special spell so completely removed from all pomposity. If today we seem to understand how it is possible to simultaneously be witty, insightful, caustic, philanthropic, sad, almost sentimental, and impeccably faithful to the highest canons of prose and dramatic writing - it is because we learned it from Chekhov. That is, it was learned from him by the great writers who came after him, and whose reading also formed us.
Nikolay Alekseyevich Ivanov, a spahi and a "permanent member of the office for peasant affairs", has not yet reached the age of forty and is already too tired of a dull and rutted life, of deep dissatisfaction not only with "opportunities in society" (which are clearly pressing) but even more by himself. He cannot and does not want to settle down in the blessings of the Existent in which he no longer believes, if he ever did. The day somehow still gets by, but when the evening falls, he must escape from the unbearably suffocating prose of his own "infested" life among the thick walls of the estate where his terminally ill wife Anna Petrovna, formerly Sarah Abramson, a baptized Jewish woman who changed because of him, remains to languish faith, and towards which he is no longer able to feel anything, not even love, let alone hatred. And so he runs away to the Lebedevs' home, at first unaware that their daughter Sasha loves him, in the end, seduced by the energy, faith and purity of her love, he thinks for a moment that there may still be a different future for him. This discovery disturbs Anna Petrovna, and her young doctor Lvov - probably unaware that he loves her himself - all humiliated by his own "honesty" and other innumerable virtues, vehemently and righteously accuses Ivanov of not loving either of them, of doing everything out of banal self-interest: banality, well, cannot see anything more in the other than what it itself contains. In the end, Ivanov breaks down in the face of the inability to explain himself (at least to himself, to begin with) and protect young Sasha from himself, killing himself like Ian Curtis in the gap between two women, one living in vain, the other dead in vain, uprooted to the core from himself and from of every imaginable harmony and fullness of life.
Tanja Mandić Rigonat sets ivanova at the National Theater apparently "classic", but only insofar as it does not start from the premise that she is smarter than Chekhov and that she knows anything more than him because she was born a century later. What does "smarter" mean in this context? It is not a problem with directors who coherently "upgrade" Chekhov (as Janežič masterfully did with Seagulls), but in those who suppress - as if it were some kind of weed - I guess so that more of their original genius could fit into the show. Tanja MR obviously doesn't need that, Chekhov is not "material" or fuel for her, but a reason and an intention and a goal: that's why she reaches the goal. After all, you can't do it any other way with Chekhov. Some other writers suffer such (mis)treatment, moreover, maybe it is like that postmodernizing the stage relationship with them today is only productive, but not Chekhov's; whatever director "competed" with him too much, he was embarrassed. This director, on the contrary, lets Anton Pavlović and his characters do their thing, so she, the director, will also do what is hers. ivanova, if I'm not mistaken, it doesn't make any strokes at all, the play lasts a full two and a half hours, and every minute has a justification, every line and movement, every moment is there for a reason, and it would be a shame if it wasn't there. Everyone haste Chekhov should be a crime anyway. Nikola Ristanovski is Ivanov, and that choice sounds logical, indeed challenging. We saw the great Macedonian actor in all his splendor in Glembays i Dervish and death; this creation doesn't go that far, his Ivanov is choleric, confused, by himself as much as by the world in which he no longer feels at home as a frightened human individual, there is no foul, but in all this, in the flamboyant Ristanovski, there are also traces of a certain excess, a surprising overcrowding which may evaporate in future renditions, just like a certain, sometimes disturbing linguistic mismatch, which we did not feel in the above-mentioned earlier rolls, and which appeared here as a "speech defect" effect, which is a completely confusing, inappropriate sound signal. Nada Shargin as Anna Petrovna is confident at all times, a picture of the luxury of an actress naturally built and matured for such a demanding role, perhaps the pinnacle of her career so far; Hana Selimović as Saša is certainly the axis of this play, a magnetic force around which everything revolves, a sensitive volcano that occasionally erupts strongly and dominates the scene at every moment (the audience actually surrounds the stage on three sides, sitting on the bleachers, so we are quite close with the actors, quite logically), Bane Vidaković in the role of her benevolent and soft-spoken father, discreetly jovial and impressive, the "male" climax in the division, Predrag Eidus as Count Šabeljski, the reluctant groom with the title, scribbled, talkative, "superfluous" old man, the residue of one of a disappearing world, Nenad Stojmenović as a young doctor Ljvov is a picture and scene of hard hope, a walking breviary of virtue that becomes dangerous when she falls in love with herself; Branka Petrić and Vanja Milačić captivate in their somewhat smaller roles. Bojana Nikitović's costume design is meaningful and harmonious "in the era", Branko Hojnik's scenography is thoughtful and discreet, Irene Popović's live music is nothing but exceptional, we have not expected anything else from her for a long time.
With Urbanov Patriots, another full hit on the Great Stage of the National Theatre, where we haven't really seen hits in years past. Andraš Urban "deconstructed" Steria in order to reassemble it, Tanja Mandić Rigonat followed and embodied Chekhov more than she recontextualized and reinterpreted him; don't be too quick to think that the latter is less creative: there is no greater and more important skill than recognizing what template needs what.
