Fathers And Sons

Donmar Warehouse, London WC2

4/5

IT IS no surprise that Brian Friel adapted Ivan Turgenev’s 1862 novel Fathers And Sons for the stage because his fascination with 19th-century Russian literature, and with Anton Chekhov in particular, has informed much of his dramatic output.

Turgenev’s novel certainly lends itself to a dramatic makeover, as its mastery of conversational technique and vividly rendered characters helps to facilitate a smooth transition from page to stage.   

At the time of its composition in tsarist Russia the tale of provincial families shaken up by the arrival of student sons who have taken up the philosophy of nihilism caused an outrage. 

While this may no longer be the case, ideological conflict between generations past and present still has contemporary purchase.  

The pivotal confrontation is that between  the louche and charming Pavel (Tim McMullan), the uncle of  Arkady (Joshua James) who, as a retired guardsman, represents tradition, art and the sanctity of the past.

His values run counter to Arkady’s friend Bazarov, the fervent young nihilist who espouses a philosophy of negation of all forms of aestheticism — an intense performance by the talented US newcomer Seth Numrich.

Director Lyndsey Turner has done an outstanding job in a production which would be  hard to see bettered, enhanced as it is by Rob Howell’s atmospherically lit set and impressive ensemble acting. 

Antony Calf is wonderfully comic as the affectionate father but ineffectual landowner as is Princess Olga, played by veteran actress Susan Engel. She’s another character who personifies everything despised by Bazarov, representing as she does a moribund aristocracy.

Yet there’s a problem, not with the production but with Friel’s adaptation of Turgenev’s novel that results in a drama that is more Chekhov than Turgenev.  

Friel’s emphasis on failed love affairs, frustrated desires and the misunderstandings between fathers and sons inhabiting impoverished estates in provincial Russia is familiar Chekhov territory. 

Yet his Chekovian take on Turgenev is simply not as good as Chekhov.  

The tragedy of Bazarov’s life does not fully come across in this version as it most assuredly does in the novel, such as when Turgenev’s poignant prose states that “at that moment the whole of his wasted life stirred within him.”  

Friel also has characters explain elements of the action that cannot be staged and this leads to some awkward dramaturgy.  

Admittedly Friel’s title does include the codicil “after Turgenev” but I fear that too many compromises have been made by the playwright in bringing this profound novel to the stage.