Unrequited love has rarely been as delightful to witness as it is in Three Days In The Country, playwright Patrick Marber’s tasty new “version of” Ivan Turgenev’s considerably older (by about a hundred seventy years), longer (by an hour and a half), and stodgier (or so I’m told) A Month In The Country, and a glorious return to partner-cast form for L.A.’s crème-de-la-crème Antaeus Theatre Company.

Marber (Closer, Notes On A Scandal) keeps Turgenev’s intertwined cast of characters intact, but gives them a contemporary sensibility and a gift for delivering punch lines that would do Neil Simon proud, albeit more subtly so.

 Nike Doukas and Anna Khaja share the role of Natalya Petrovna, wed for the past twenty-or-so years so landowner Arkadi (Antonio Jaramillo, Daniel Blinkoff) but pined over these same two decades by her husband’s longtime best friend Rakitin (Leo Marks, Corey Brill), summoned to the countryside by Natalya (“I’m in despair, please come at once”) in hopes of relieving life’s tedium, if only for a day or two or three.

  Not that things have been all that dull since the arrival a few months back of 20something Belayev (Peter Mendoza) as tutor to Arkadi and Natalya’s preteen son Kolya (Elijah Justice, Marcello Silva), months during which the big-city hottie has stoked romantic and/or sexual fires in Natalya’s illegitimate half-sister/ward Vera (Jeanne Syquia, Chelsea Kurtz), her maidservant Katya (Lila Dupree, Ellis Greer), and quite possibly in Natalya herself as well.

Also along for the ride are the card-playing trio of Arkady’s mother Anna (Lorna Raver, Reba Waters Thomas), Anna’s spinster companion Lizaveta (Lily Knight, Dawn Didawick), and German tutor Schaaf (Marcelo Tubert, Patrick Wenk-Wolf), plus local physician Shpigelsky (Armin Shimerman, Harry Groener), wealthy neighbor Bolshintsov (Gregory Itzin, Alberto Isaac), and lovelorn servant Matvey (Jay Lee, John Bobek).

Compacting the action from the Turgenev original’s month-long stay, Marber’s Three Days In The Country maintains the romantic intrigues while spicing things up with a gift for set-up-and-punch guaranteed to provide ample laughter while inspiring admiration for the playwright’s comedic gifts.

It helps immensely that Marber’s words are entrusted to some of the L.A. theater’s finest Antaeans, divided into two separate-but-equal casts, the Blunderers (names listed first here) and the Assassins, under Andrew Paul’s incisive, inspired direction.

Khaja may give Natalya a more luxuriant mid-19th-century look than the short-tressed Doukas, but both actresses triumph as victims of long-awaited love.

Marks and Brill give as good as they get, all four leads acing their characters’ Act Two breakdowns to stunning effect as the equally incandescent Syquia and Kurtz come to the sad realization that love dreams may not always come true.

Shimerman and Groener (as crotchety long-confirmed bachelor Shrigelsky) and Knight and Didawick (as his snuff-sniffing, wine-guzzling late-in-life love interest Lizaveta) are all four granted an Act Two-opening scene so delciously droll and pitch-perfectly played, spontaneous applause is guaranteed.

As for the just-ate-a-lemon Itzin and the pixyish Isaac as the self-declared “inept in the art of romance” Bolshintsov, there’s a scene between him, Shrigelsky, Rakitin, and a basket of raspberries that is simply delish.

And speaking of mouthwatering, just wait till you see the equally delectable Dupree and Greer deliver their own distinctive takes on Katya’s R-rated plum-munching, with Bobek, Blinkoff, Jaramillo, Lee, Tubert, Wenk-Wolff and child charmers Justice and Silva matching their costars every step of the way.

 Last but not least is luckiest-actor-in-town Mendoza, fresh from his breakout turn in Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue, and charismatic as all get-out as the object of affection (and lust) of at least three female characters per cast (and if my ears didn’t deceive men, of one of the men as well).

 Three Days In The Country looks quite marvelous on Se Hyun Oh’s spare-but-stylish set, decorated by properties designer Erin Walley, painted by the always masterful Orlando de la Paz, and lit to gorgeous indoor-outdoor perfection by Jared A. Sayeg, with A. Jeffrey Schoenberg’s two sets of period costumes adding their own magic. (Special snaps to Doukas’s Act Two red and Khaja’s equally stunning post-intermission blue.)

Christopher Moscatiello earns sound design points for his jaunty between-scenes musical underscoring, offstage effects, and (spoiler alert) Matthew Goldsby’s prerecorded piano solos that had me not doubting even for a moment that it was Bobek and Lee themselves tickling the ivories.

 Emily Sulzberger is assistant director. Lili Koehler is production stage manager and Jessica Osorio is assistant stage manager. Adam Meyer is production manager/technical director and Cuyler Perry is assistant technical director.

Though rather more faithful to its source material than Aaron Posner’s present day adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull (audaciously retitled Stupid F***ing Bird), both 21st-century gems prove that there’s fresh new life in 19th-century Russian classics, and with two fabulous casts bringing Turgenev’s Marber-tweaked characters to indelible life, L.A. theater lovers are advised to leave at least two spots on the calendar for the irresistible Three Days In The Country.

Kiki & David Gindler Performing Arts Center, 110 East Broadway, Glendale.
www.Antaeus.org

–Steven Stanley
July 12 and 13, 2018
Photos: Geoffrey Wade Photography

Tags: Ivan Turgenev, Los Angeles Theater Review, Patrick Marber, The Antaeus Company