This is a great play, excellently performed. But a review has to be longer than that simple statement of approval, so here is some comment to make up the space.
I was worried before I went to The Yalta Game. My worry had three main causes. First, The Yalta Game is an adaptation of one of the greatest of short stories, Chekhov’s Lady with a Little Dog. It seemed impossible that any version would manage to do it justice. Secondly, the adaptation was made by Brian Friel, Irish playwright and author of Translations, one of my least favourite plays. Thirdly, it goes without saying, it is a student production, and I have been burned too often by tedious student drama.
Mea culpa. It seems that when he isn’t burdened with his own plots, Brian Friel can write and adapt for the stage with great subtlety. Chekhov is obviously stronger than anything Friel can throw at him, and even when all the great passages of descriptive mood-building are removed, the bare bones of Chekhov’s story are sturdy. And Friel has an undeniable gift for the sort of introspective monologue which suitably fleshes out the drama. The plot of the play is simple enough: in the Crimean resort town of Yalta, a middle-aged roué, Dmitri (Conal McLean), meets a young woman, Anna (Cicely Hayward), who is holidaying alone, away from her much older husband. Dmitri decides, as he has with so many other women, to seduce Anna. However, he finds himself falling in love with her. It’s that simple. Or at least, it’s not quite that simple—but to find out exactly what happens, you’ll have to go to see the play.
But the best reason to see The Yalta Game is not the play itself. It is impossible not to be impressed by the performances of the two actors. Individually, they are not perfect: the weakest section of the play is Dmitri’s opening monologue, which seems to fall into a vacuum. But as soon as they are together on the stage, both McLean and Hayward are impossible to ignore. The whole arc of their relationship, which has to be covered in fifty minutes (it is a short play—another reason to go), is carefully mapped out, and the various changes of mood are portrayed seamlessly. Their phrasing and body language is completely convincing. One little moment: Anna presses against Dmitri, then moves away, dropping her hands—as her left hand falls, Dmitri grabs her wrist. It sounds easy, but the action is so natural and performed so clearly that it is as if Chekhov had described it himself. Really good acting.
Of course, Hayward, playing a twenty-year-old, has it slightly easier than McLean, who has to play at being at least twice his age. But it doesn’t matter, and their slightly weak voices don’t matter, and the fact that they can’t decide how to pronounce Yalta doesn’t matter. This (and here’s where I came in) is a great play, excellently performed.
James Womack, 26.10.05
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