"Визит Дамы"

(Ленком at Dailes Teātris, 18 June 2011)

Just as Hitchcock encouraged Diane Baker in "Marnie" to extinguish her smile instead of frowning, Александр Морфов, by the second act, tempers the first act's farce and unchecked verbosity so as to intensify the tragedy, delivered in few well-chosen words and economical moves. The first act's mediocrity (powered by all but Анна Якунина), however, is probably mostly due to the script's deficiency and the method actors' desire to conserve their strengths for the second act, which all involved must have deemed more important. The cast is at greater ease inhabiting the characters in pain than in joy.

The production takes one on an emotional journey, exploring which emotion is likely to follow which, instead of an intellectual journey, describing which action leads to which outcome.

In expectation of money, the characters get so far by barter that one wonders why they needed any money in the first place.