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A Month in the Country

 ((Criterion Center Stage Right, New York; 499 seats; $ 55 top))

By JEREMY GERARD

A Roundabout Theater Company presentation, by special arrangement with Duncan C. Weldon, of a play in five acts (one intermission) by Ivan Turgenev, translated by Richard Freeborn. Directed by Scott Ellis.
 
Cast: Rocco Sisto (Schaaf), Helen Stenborg (Anna Semenova), Gail Grate (Lizaveta Bogdanova), Helen Mirren (Natalya Petrovna), Ron Rifkin (Mikhailo Alexandrovich Rakitin), Alessandro Nivola (Alexi Nikolaevich Belyaev), F. Murray Abraham (Ignaty Ilich Shpigelsky), Kathryn Erbe (Verochka), Byron Jennings (Arkady Sergeich Islaev), John Christopher Jones (Afanasy Ivanovich Bolshintsov); Patricia T. A. Ageheim, Dan Moran, Benjamin N. Ungar.
 

After the first scene of "A Month in the Country," the ceiling of a drawing room on a well-appointed country estate lowers to become a severely raked garden where several characters meet. The moderato scene-change draws applause; it's not quite the descent of the spaceship in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," but you get the idea. That applause is as well-earned as anything else in a production whose efficiency is its chief asset, not to mention the prime suspect in a production that is almost always entertaining but never involving."A Month in the Country" stars Helen Mirren reprising the leading role of Natalya Petrovna, which she played last year in London: A bored, wealthy woman infatuated with her innocent ward's cute tutor, only to become the girl's rival. Written in 1850, the play famously foreshadows Chekhov's comedies, which of course weren't comedies at all, but exposes of the indiscreet boredom of the bourgeoisie.

Turgenev surely wasn't above giving the patrons a few chuckles. To the character of Shpigelsky, the scheming, incompetent doctor played broadly and charmlessly by F. Murray Abraham, the playwright gave two surefire monologues. In the first scene, Natalya goads him into delivering the latest gossip from town, only to be disappointed in the results. And after the intermission, he delivers what ranks among the most hilariously inapt marriage proposals ever written: "I'm getting old and my cook is always stealing from me," he tells his intended. "A wife is soft wax in a good husband's hands."

Nevertheless, if Natalya's feelings for the tutor Belyaev (Alessandro Nivola) should never be misread for love -- certainly not the love proffered her by the smitten hanger-on Rakitin (Ron

Rifkin) -- they do conceal an emptiness that must be felt if the play is to have any weight.

Yet what Mirren and director Scott Ellis have conspired to deliver here is a good old-fashioned star turn, wrapped in a boulevard comedy. Yes, there's plenty of technique in evidence on the stage; however familiar her films and TV projects, Mirren is no interloper seeking validation on a Broadway stage. Still, she does a double take that would make Bob Hope proud, and Natalya's self-deprecating asides are tossed off as if to tell the audience she doesn't take any of this seriously, and neither should we. It's a larger than life-size performance in a play that demands a human scale.

The lightness of tone is all but bleached by Nivola, whose blank Belyaev puts one in the mind of Kato Kaelin, and the pouting Kathryn Erbe, an otherwise striking actress, at sea as Verochka, the girl who really does love him.

Smaller roles are better filled: Byron Jennings, defiantly dignified as Natalya's irrelevant husband; the elegant Gail Grate as Shpigelsky's intended; and an abashed John Christopher Jones as a boorish neighbor.

Jane Greenwood's costumes, period-perfect as always, are not always flattering to the star. The set, blond and gauzy, surrounded by the inevitable birch grove, is indeed striking, but what one really remembers is Brian Nason's scalding light scheme: bold, blazing yellows that burn into a bleeding, fiery sunset during the scene in which Natalya tries to convince Belyaev (and herself, no doubt) that she's in love with him. How strange, to have the air literally turn red with passion when the center of the show throws off so very little heat.

Sets, Santo Loquasto; costumes, Jane Greenwood; lighting, Brian Nason; sound, Tony Meola; production stage manager, Jay Adler; casting, Pat McCorkle; general manager, Ellen Richard. Artistic director, Todd Haimes. Opened April 25, 1995, reviewed April 23. Running time: 2 hours, 45 min.