When it comes to 19th-century Rus sian playwrights, Chekhov is it, at least in New York. So hopes were raised when Classic Stage Company decided to give his contemporary Alexander Ostrovsky a prestige production led by Dianne Wiest.
Based on the sluggish show that opened last night, though, Chekhov’s stranglehold isn’t about to end.
This is too bad, because “The Forest” is a wonderful piece and deserves to be seen — just not necessarily in this production. Director Brian Kulick seemed to have a hard time deciding what the play is about, and struggled to find the right tone.
Written in 1870, “The Forest” offers a delicious mix of social satire and Shakespearean plotting. The first element is covered in the household of Raisa (Wiest), a lady of means who’s selling bits of her estate’s forest to a crass merchant (Sam Tsoutsouvas).
Raisa is also pushing her impoverished niece, Aksyusha (Lisa Joyce), into the arms of the idiotic Bulanov (Adam Driver). Never mind that Raisa herself has an incomprehensible, midlife-crisis crush on Bulanov, while Aksyusha is secretly in love with another lad.
To this sturdy base — which also pokes fun at the clash between entitled gentry and nouveau riches — Ostrosvky adds a pair of traveling actors prone to grand statements and meddling. When Raisa’s nephew, Gennady (John Douglas Thompson), and his acolyte Arkady (Tony Torn) drop by, these two thespians pull off everybody’s masks.
Unfortunately, Kulick sets a torpid pace, dragged down even more by Santo Loquasto’s drab set. (The actors seem wary of schlepping up and down the treacherous-looking staircase.)
Wiest realizes the play is full of comic riches. Her Raisa may look like a demure, kind soul, but she’s also greedy, manipulative and selfish — and Wiest mines this contrast for all it’s worth.
This is exactly where Thompson comes up short. Gennady is an upright man devoted to his art, but he’s also a self-important, second-rate thespian, a discrepancy Ostrovsky mines with great wit. Thompson displayed mesmerizing intensity in last year’s “Othello” and “The Emperor Jones,” but a talented tragedian isn’t necessarily fit to play a bad one — no matter how well-intentioned actor and character are.
elisabeth.vincentelli
@nypost.com