Drei Tage auf dem Land / Three Days in the Country

The Islayev’s country estate is brimming with summer guests. Family friends, distant acquaintances and annoying neighbours come and go in search of shade and distraction:

The lady of the house has once more invited the family friend, an admirer whom she has been keeping on a short leash for years. Her daughter writes poems about love and is mocked for her pains. The so-far unmarried neighbour enquires whether this girl might not be ripe for marriage. The country doctor tries to score with the lady’s companion. And there is a new guest: the private tutor who becomes the interest of several guests at once.

Secret negotiations and high stakes are evident between the salons and back rooms, between the garden and the summer house. A dance of hopes and aspirations, of allusions and expectations becomes ever more urgent: young love, old love, new futures. Everyone sees everything. Those who are not in love, play cards – and still keep an eye on all the others. Whoever has built no house now, will never have one.

Scenes from country living that could just as well be scenes from the big city. Scenes from a Russian past that could just as well happen today: It has been a while since a theatre play has told such a well-observed and funny story about its characters, all of them written with great sympathy and yet with great precision.

British author Patrick Marber’s treatment of Turgeniev’s classic “Ein Monat auf dem Lande (A Month in the Country)“ is not so much a rewriting as a concentration: One month becomes three days – three intense days, its characters plunging themselves into life as if it were not only the summer that was ending soon. “Hautnah (Closer)”, the chamber piece about the lives and longings of four singles unable to find a partner either in real life or in cyberspace, brought Patrick Marber international renown; now he rediscovers a classic of theatre literature for the present times.

Schauspiel Leipzig will take this production into the city, under the open skies: This season, the Summer Theatre will wander through the city of Leipzig, to be experienced in the open air at always new locations.

Enrico Lübbe, artistic director of Schauspiel Leipzig, will direct the play. Marialena Lapata, who most recently created the set for “Wolken.Heim” with Titus Schade, will develop the stage. Sabine Blickensdorfer, who has worked with Enrico Lübbe on several productions (including “Die Schutzflehenden / Die Schutzbefohlenen”, “Wolken.Heim” and “FAUST”) as well as with Markus Bothe (she designed both set and costumes for “Gefährliche Liebschaften (Dangerous Liaisons)” will design the costumes.