A Month in the Country description
A summer on a Russian country estate is unsettled by the arrival of a young tutor.
Natalya Petrovna lives comfortably on her husband Arkady's estate, where the days pass in cards, conversation and the steady attention of Michel Rakitin, the family friend who has loved her for years. The engagement of Aleksey Belyayev as tutor to her son changes the temperature of the household. Natalya finds herself drawn to him, and so does Vera, her young ward - and what begins as a private feeling becomes a rivalry neither woman can admit to.
A Month in the Country was written by Ivan Turgenev in 1850 and is performed here in the version by Brian Friel, which premiered at the Gate Theatre in Dublin in 1992 and was staged in London by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1999. The Donmar Warehouse production was given four stars by The Stage, whose critic wrote that "consummate performances elevate this bittersweet drama of stifling manners and unrequited passion".
The production is directed by Lyndsey Turner, an Olivier Award winner whose work includes Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch at the Barbican and The Crucible for the National Theatre and in the West End. Friel, who wrote this version, is the Irish dramatist behind Translations and Dancing at Lughnasa. The design is by Leslie Travers, with lighting by Tim Lutkin, sound by Max Pappenheim, music by Angus MacRae and movement by Anna Morrissey.
Sophie Okonedo plays Natalya Petrovna. She won a Tony Award for A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway and an Evening Standard Award for Antony and Cleopatra at the National Theatre, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Hotel Rwanda. She is joined by Alistair Petrie (Sex Education) as Rakitin, Patrick Gibson (Shadow and Bone) as Belyayev, Rachelle Diedericks as Vera and Thomas Arnold as Arkady, with Susan Brown, Daniel Rigby, Mark Hadfield, Michael Hodgson, Jonathan Livingstone, Jessica Brindle and Amanda Wilkin.
Book tickets for Turgenev's study of a household undone by a single summer's infatuation.
