Productions

Wild Honey is Michael Frayn’s adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s first, untitled play. Discovered posthumously in 1923, and known by several different titles in a number of productions around the world, it was not until the mid-1980s that it was given its most audience-friendly form by Frayn.

The result is a curious, but entertaining play that takes the sharp flavours of melodrama and farce and then simmers them down into an intoxicating melange of low morals and way too much vodka.

The story takes place in a provincial country estate (so what else is new?), where the widowed landowner returns for the summer after spending the winter months in Moscow. All the local friends and hangers-on gather to greet her, including among others two elderly suitors, the district doctor, and Platonov (the schoolteacher) and his wife. The widow wants to have an affair with Platonov--in fact, three women, one of them married, vie for Platonov’s attention; while Platonov, for the most part, tries to remain faithful to his wife.

The first scene of the second act is a classic comedy of errors. It takes place at night in the forest, just outside Platonov’s house where his wife is sleeping. Anna Petrovna, the landowner, appears out of the darkness and wants to spirit Platonov off to the summerhouse to make hay. But various other characters, some of them drunk and some sober, keep interrupting this rendezvous. One of them is Sofya, married to Platonov’s best friend, who wants to run away with him. The comings and goings in this scene are hilarious--reminiscent of one of Shakespeare’s comedies in which each character misinterprets what every other character says or does.

The play ends, though, on a dark note, or at least a sobering note. Platonov’s wife has left him due to these misunderstandings, and each of the three other women is closing in for the (metaphorical) kill. He decides to run away, and the play ends as he is running down the tracks distractedly, not paying any attention to the train that overtakes him from behind and kills him. This is not a tragic death; it’s funny, but also very sad. Platonov is, after all, a good man, even though weakness and indecision led to his downfall and meaningless death.

Cast:
Ian Aldred, Christopher Barbour, Chris Blyth, Jo Butt, Caroline Coventry, Tania Grant, David Grimes, Caroline Mathison, Lorraine McCann, Craig McFarlane, Ronnie Millar,Brian Neill, Gary Waterall, Rolly York

Crew:
Liz Brock, Gillian Burnett, Jo Butt, Penelope Ciancanelli, Cassie Coutts, Andy Ellis, Sue Ellis, J Gordon Hughes, Iain Kerr, Susan Wales, Claire Wood


Edinburgh Evening News
Rural raunch misses essence of Chekhov
Thursday, 15 November 2007 By Thom Dibdin

Wild Honey **
Adam House

THEY might not be rolling in the aisles of the Adam House Theatre, but the Edinburgh Graduate Theatre Group has found plenty of the comedy and pace in this adaptation of Chekhov's unpublished early play.

Wild Honey is Michael Frayn's take on the play sometimes known as Platonov. He's cut out the long-winded moralising and played up the humour. The result is a cross between brilliant Chekhovian self-parody and rural raunch.

It's tricky stuff to play well. It needs a straight-faced treatment of the overarching plot, as the young widow Ann Petrovna returns to her estate for the summer to hold court as she is wooed by the local rich landowners.

Yet it also needs innuendo and double-entendre. First, to subvert that po-faced approach, then to highlight the full humour of the situation as local schoolteacher Platonov plays Don Juan in this rural backwater, being openly rude to all the women who, consequently, fall at his feet.

The Grads do not get off to an auspicious start. Christopher Barbour is certainly po-faced as local Dr Triletzky when the large cast is introduced in the opening scene. Craig McFarlane is deliberately insipid as Ann's stepson, Sergey, returned to the estate with a new wife, Sofya.

Unfortunately, the cast also let it plod along dreadfully - no matter how bright and commanding Caroline Mathison is as Ann Petrovna. The lines all fall into place with accuracy, yet there is no feeling for the subtleties of Frayn's approach to Chekhov.

As things get more obviously tricky to play, however, the production warms up. With Brian Neill eventually superb as Semyonovich - the landowner who can save the estate by marrying Ann - and Jo Butt revelling in drunken Colonel Triletzky, the performers find the full farce of a drunken summer dinner party.

The real depth of comedy here, however, needs to come from David Grimes as Platonov. He does reasonably well too, creating a sense of the self-satisfied man who has fallen into married life with boring Sasha (Lorraine McCann), while using his intellect to hold affairs with whoever he chooses.

It is here that the really farcical double-entendres need to be played for all they are worth. This is the Frayn of Noises Off, and demands a complex mix of precise timing with glimpses of ferocious overacting as the characters' true sexual feelings bubble up, all underpinned by deadly earnestness.

The technical aspects - from the complicated set down - are well done.

But while the glimpses of the play's potential are sufficient to make this an entertaining evening out, they are not enough to capture its true essence.