Dearbhla Molloy and Dermot Crowley in a scene from “Afterplay.”
PHOTO BY CAROL ROSEG
By Orla O’Sullivan
The set of “Afterplay” is so warm and inviting you feel like stepping into that time and place, illuminated by little red gas lamps dotted around the richly upholstered wallpaper in a 1920s Moscow café. However, once the play begins, the fantasy of stepping back in time and far afield gives way to the realization that the human condition is inescapable wherever it is lived.
“Afterplay,” just opened at the Irish Repertory Theatre, presumably was so named by its author, the late Brian Friel, because it imagined two of Anton Chekhov’s memorable characters meeting decades after they appeared in the original works. (Fear not, this play is a delight in itself, whether or not you are familiar with Sonya Serebriakova, the dutiful niece in “Uncle Vanya” or Andrey Prozorov, the downtrodden intellectual brother of “The Three Sisters.”)
Additionally, a Tony and Olivier winner such as Friel cannot have been deaf to how the word he created, “afterplay” jarringly evokes its opposite, foreplay.
The strangers, who meet two nights in a row on their respective visits to Moscow from the country, have a profound impact on each other. They bare their souls and part with the understanding and regret of an affair that is ending without ever having enjoyed the beginning: the hope, excitement and romance of young love. (It is telling that they discuss a cure for chilblains the night they meet.)
“It’s over” is the growing sense from the two middle-aged characters
in this wistful play. Like their surroundings, on closer analysis, they are frayed. Sonya (Dearbhla Molloy) who once built her uncle’s country estate into something great, now is accepting survival terms dictated by the banks. Her uncle ineptly took the reins before his death and almost ruined the farm. And Andrey (Dermot Crowley) despite his tuxedo, is not enjoying the success he initially tries to project. Neither can overcome their past.
You could argue that they have been undone by the capricious and destructive force of love on the part of others in their lives: Andrey’s runaway wife and the absconding adulterer who devastated his sister; and Sonya’s uncle Vanya, among others swayed by Sonya’s stepmother, who was the same age and more beautiful than Sonya.
But who among us can resist such impulses, the play seems to ask in conclusion. Yet another unrequited love letter is being written as the lights go out.
Depressing though all this may sound, the play is more of a touching study in resilience (the frequent repetition of the word “enthusiasm” gives way to “fortitude,” as it goes on). And it has funny moments, such as when Andrey by degrees admits all his self-aggrandizing fabrications to Sonya, while attempting to classify them as minor departures from the truth.
The play reunites Crowley and Molloy on the Rep stage, where they last appeared together in 2012. The excellent actors were each nominated for awards in this year’s Origin’s 1st Irish festival, in which Crowley won best actor. Molloy was seen recently on Broadway in John Patrick Shanley’s “Outside Mullingar.”
Direction was by Joe Dowling, who in 2015 wrapped up 20 years as artistic director of The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.
In a director’s note, Dowling said, “Chekhov was a primary influence on Friel’s work from the beginning of his career.” Adding that Friel saw himself as godfather, not father to the Russian masters’ characters, Dowling said: “The complex life Chekhov breathed into Sonya and Andrey… can be carried forward into this extended existence provided the two stay true to where and what they came from.”
“Afterplay” was first produced in 2002 at Dublin’s Gate Theatre. The set for the current production was designed by Tony Award winner John Lee Beatty (“The Nance”).
“Afterplay” by Brian Friel, after Anton Chekhov, runs at the Irish Rep, 132 West 22nd St, through November 6. Directed by Joe Dowling, it stars Dermot Crowley and Dearbhla Molloy. Tickets at 212-727-2737 or www.irishrep.org.
