"grateful for the homage to Chekhov, but ... "

August 4, 2005 performance, reviewed by Frances Benn Hall

Rebecca Brooksher, Nick Newell
Photo by Rick Teller

In Steven Dietz's unevenly written play, The Nina Variations, he employs a motley of themes from Chekhov’s Sea Gull, a play for which he obviously has great love and affinity.

Treplev (Nick Newell), the son of a famous actress who performs in tawdry plays he deems old fashioned, is a playwright and complains, in Chekhov’s words, “We must have new forms.” A fledgling author, he is agonized by his inability to produce a play in a new way for the stage.

Chekhov, too, worked in a new form, and The Sea Gull (themes of which thread the 42 variations in Dietz's play of homage) was a failure in St Petersburg, and only later was understood (or mis-understood still, Chekhov felt) when Stanislavsky produced it at the Moscow Art Theatre in a version the audience deemed a success.

“Art is not easy,” as a character in Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park With George tells us. Playwriting is not easy as, Treplev finds out. And as even Dietz, with successes behind him, must feel about this current play.

Although promotion for the play stressed Act 1V from Chekhov’s play as the source, leading one to expect different endings, Dietz's play, while leaning heavily on that Act, drew Chekhov lines and scenes from the play as a whole, weaving Treplev and Nina (Rebecca Brooksher) and their tangled relationship in and out of the 42 variations.

Adoring Nina, who loves another (a popular and successful author whom Treplev despises), Treplev casts her in the lead of the new play which he is struggling to write. Much of Dietz's play deals with Nina’s attempts to understand and assist the frustrated Treplev. She cannot return his love but is funny, tender and defiant in her attempts to understand and help him.

In Dietz's play (and in Chekhov’s) Nina is the much more sympathetic character, and in this current play proves she is a dynamic little actress, capable of clowning as well as deep tender emotion. She can be funny as she protests against a seagull at a lake!!! - and very moving (for both Chekhov and Dietz) when at the end she quotes,

Newell as Treplev is much less sympathetic, both as a character and as rewritten by Dietz. He plays fewer variations on his negative theme.

All concerned, playwright, director, set and lighting designer have tried hard to make this Chekhov homage work. Sadly it fails to do so.

One is grateful for the homage to Chekhov, but find it less rewarding than other attempts, such as Brian Friel’s remarkable play Afterplay which takes one character each from two Chekhov plays and in his struggle for new forms makes a brilliant little play in the process.

The Miniature Theatre of Chester brings us all sorts of new plays by young playwrights and is commended for doing so. Its current success with Retreat from Moscow and its extended run is an example.

Treplev is right in urging new forms. It is just not always possible to produce one that works. For me, this one did not, although it had its moments. And the batting average up in Chester is still a high one.

The Miniature Theatre of Chester  |  miniaturetheatre.org
P.O. Box 722,  Chester, MA 01011-0722
Box Office: 413-354-7771