Ivanov

According to theatre critics, the production of Chekhov’s Ivanov belongs to the top events of the 2005/2006 season not only within the activity of Martin theatre but also in Slovakia generally.  Director Roman Polák succeeded in producing a unique interpretation key and offered a new view on Chekhov as the author of the clash of multicultural socio-political and religious contexts.

The climate for introducing Chekhov is traditionally very favourable in Martin. The profile of being a “Chekhov´s” theatre was introduced for the first time in 1979 when the legendary production of The Cherry Orchard directed by Ľubomír Vajdička was presented, in which the “backstage” – the lower current of Chekhov poetics was shown and presented in a modern tragicomic light. Almost thirty years later there is again another non-standard, theatrically daring interpretation of Chekhov, which is, however, based on the very essence of his work.

Polák does not rewrite Ivanov, to the main hero he only adds the attributes of a modern thirty-something man living in the present-day hectic world. We see Ivanov´s life crisis, the so-called burn out syndrome, which according to statistics affects more than a half of his generation. Polák managed to create an atemporal production, a piece of directorial invention, brilliancy of acting and ambivalence of meaning; a piece exclusively theatrical, which asks fundamental questions such as Who am I? and What do I want? by means of  slapstick comedy, and which oscillates between burlesque comedy and sharp tragedy.

Surrounded by grotesque figures in padded clothes and figures as if from the Japanese “bunraku” theatre, faltering Ivanov is gradually being crushed by states of depersonalisation.  He cannot free himself either by the memory of childhood depicted as a boy with a balloon, or by threatening dummies that wait for his last step like time bombs, or endless devotion and love of two women – the wife and the lover. It is impossible to express his mental, emotional and physical exhaustion by the way of a word. The labyrinth of possible interpretations is hinted at by the stage design based on the essential spiral or the Jin-Jang principle. The contrast between black-and-white visualization and colourful inner perceiving makes the production the piece of extraordinary experience.
Vladislava Fekete