'The people who are fond of visiting lunatic asylums are few in this world' says Chekov in his famous anti-intellectual story, 'Ward No. 6'.But at C Cubed you can safely visit Mathew Parker's new adroit production. The play has been adapted into both film and plays before but Mr. Parker certainly has his own take. Adaptation has it's perils. The tenet being that fidelity compromises the dramatic view while significant alteration can occlude the story's true meaning. Confounding this problem is that Chekov's story has a flaw - which I will get to. Mr. Parker manages to elegantly overcome the various issues with a dramatic structure that adds to the story's true meaning and thus succeeds in more ways than one.The nub of Chekhov's tale is this: Doctor Ragin, an idealist and pseudo-intellectual, arrives to work at a filthy, decrepit mental institution. He complains about conditions but does nothing. "You are only theoretically acquainted with life" says inmate Gromov whom Ragin forms a bond with. Gromov is the only person in the town with conversational bite so Ragin spends most of his time with him rather than attending to his duties. This raises the alarm and one of his colleagues plots to have him committed. The ending (which I will omit) is different in both stories but Mr. Parker adds scintillating irony.In Mr. Parker's version, the play opens inside Ward No. 6, the inner sanctum of the incurable, the hopelessly insane. Nobody visits because the hospital has been abandoned. Four white faced, rub-eyed inmates, Marushka (Charlotte Blake), Gromov (Ben Galpin), Petya (Michael Linsey) and unexpectedly, Ragin (Harry Lobek) awake to another day of undisturbed delirium. But then they begin to play a game around a chalk circle drawn by Gromov. Someone is going to get to choose a special twig. That person will have the honour of playing Dr. Ragin. Put it another way, they choose at random who lives in reality and who is outside of it. A clear statement of arbitrary psychiatric judgment reflecting the modern controversy of methods of diagnosing the mentally ill. This opening is the key departure from Chekhov and solves the flaw in the short story; that being Ragin's problematic yielding to his colleagues.What follows is largely faithful to the original but has a comic element with the various inmates playing the sane and the insane while bringing a beautiful and philosophical warmth to the piece.It's not necessary to know anything about the short story in order to follow the action or appreciate it. It stands on its own.Accompanied by Russian folk and orchestral movements, the actors move with watery grace transitioning from their various roles with sharp twists when needed yet each are keenly alert to their new roles as they occur. Ms. Blake is to be singled out for her mentally jack-knifed characters played with engaging ferocity, abandon and a specificity that the others in the group lack. Mr. Galpin's Gromov tends to play on the surface. His character has more depth than he has developed for it. However, he is hampered as is Mr. Lobek, playing Ragin, with an effusion of expositional dialogue slowing the action and both often tread into a pedantic marsh. Mr. Lobek convincingly evokes the wide eyed stare of the facile intellectual, both comic and pitiful. The set is simple and appropriate. The twigs and box and unusual food service are all well thought out. Direction is, at times, a little cluttered but so is the space. It can be hard to determine where we are at certain points leaving the audience behind for a few moments forcing them to catch up. What the play lacks is a larger vision, an imagination necessary to bring this work of promise to greater heights. Where Mr. Parker has succeeded is clear. He has taken a classic story and improved upon it showing a vibrant intelligence and sensitivity. For that, it's well worth the price of admission.
