Ivanov

CHEKHOV is rightly viewed by many as the Russian Shakespeare for his questing insights into the soul.

Branagh makes a welcome return to the West End stage Branagh makes a welcome return to the West End stage

In Ivanov, the first of the playwright’s completed plays and one that exhausted him, he has created a truly sad creature.

Here is a man of once unlimited promise but who is now dragged down by debt, doubt and smothering despair.

Although Chekhov would greatly refine his style in later years – Ivanov was written when he was only 27 – the play is a fascinating insight into the wreckage of one man’s mid-life crisis in a Russia on the cusp of great change.

It is a demanding part and Kenneth Branagh, in a greatly welcomed return to the West End stage, plays the title role with a powerful portrayal of crippling hopelessness.

Here is an educated, intelligent and sensitive person pole-axed by debt

and overcome by misery and self-pity. Branagh dominates the stage with his boiling anger, lashing out at old friends and even turning on his dying wife Anna.

This is a memorable performance and is often so moving that you even feel like jumping on the stage and giving the poor man a hug, telling him that it will all work out in the end. Branagh himself seems to weep genuine tears when he at last breaks down totally, curling up into a foetal ball of sheer misery.

Gina McKee also touches the heart with her picture of Anna, who is dying from tuberculosis. This actress possesses a fragile beauty which is perfect for the role. She is fraught with battered emotion, particularly on finding Ivanov embracing the infatuated teenaged Sasha (a rather too perky a performance by Andrea Riseborough).

Lorcan Cranitch brings a forceful hilarity to the vodka-reeking gamekeeper and Malcolm Sinclair, as the rakish Count, is impressive in the sheer pointlessness of his existence.

Director Michael Grandage keeps the play’s rhythm moving briskly and Christopher Oram’s designs are stunning, particularly in scene one where the cloying, stifling atmosphere of Ivanov’s farm is caught perfectly. And Ivanov’s study, with its grubby chaos and dead game hanging pathetically, is a clever symbol of his crumbled life.

This new version of the play is by Tom Stoppard and he gives it much contemporary linguistic appeal, with frequent touches of comedy. But it is Branagh’s portrait of a man hanging by a cobweb-thin thread that will remain in the memory.

OUR VERDICT: 4/5

Wyndham’s Theatre, London. Tickets: 0844 482 5120

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