Chekhov's first play, Ivanov, adapted by David Hare, directed by Gerald Gutierrez, and starring Kevin Kline, goes into previews at Lincoln Center Theater on Thursday. Pride's Crossing, a new play by Tina Howe, starts performances two weeks later. These days just before the first performances make me incredibly anxious, and today was pretty typical.
       I didn't go up to the theater on Saturday and hadn't heard from anyone about Ivanov's continuing technical rehearsals, so I went uptown to the Beaumont feeling anxious and guilty: a lethal cocktail. I was pleased and surprised to find the actors in relaxed moods, the director tired but happy, the overall progress good, and my presence welcome and totally unnecessary. I think it's important for a producer to know when to show up and when to stay away, but the rule of thumb is always "when in doubt--show up!"
       The play's greatest scene takes place at the end of Act 3 when Ivanov, goaded by his tubercular wife, calls her a "dirty Jew" and tells her that she doesn't have long to live. The transition from that into the final act is justly celebrated: The audience thinks they will see the wife's funeral and they should be startled and horrified to discover that Act 4 begins with a wedding--Ivanov has found a new wife!
       Gerry Gutierrez obsesses about such things and has rehearsed this scene shift for hours: the Act 3 study disappears, the reception room glides on, sad Russian music plays, top-hatted men dressed in black parade about. Then petals fall from the sky, the music shifts, we see white flowers everywhere, etc.
       Actors often "mark" during technical rehearsals (they go through the motions, they say their lines, but they're not working on their acting), as you have to keep going over and over the same thing, and any semblance of reality is lost. Kevin decided to play the last few lines of Act 3 in a most melodramatic 19^th-century way--to hilarious effect--and as the wagon carrying him moved offstage he contorted his face and body into every kind of comic, grotesque pose. He is brilliant and has such an incredible physical imagination. But I realized, through his inspired fooling, just how rooted in melodrama Ivanov is.
       I came home feeling calmer though I never made it to the Pride's Crossing rehearsal. Oh well. Tomorrow is a day off for both companies.