Set against the back­drop of 1850’s Rus­sia. Serfs (aka slaves) still work the land under the estate holder’s con­trol.  Reform is com­ing and the coun­try is rest­less. Rakitin is vis­it­ing his friend Arkady at his coun­try estate.  Arkady’s wife Nat­a­lya is recov­er­ing from her ill­ness. Their son Kolya, and their ward Vera, are spend­ing time with new tutor Bely­aev while prin­cip­al tutor Schaaf plays cards with Anna and Liza­veta, the oth­er ladies of the house. The doc­tor Shpi­gel­sky and neigh­bour Bolsh­int­sov are hanging around and some­thing is up with house ser­vants Matvey and Katya.

This com­edy of man­ners is expertly dir­ec­ted by Susan Wilson. The nuances of the rela­tion­ships between the char­ac­ters (in their vari­ous pair­ings) devel­op over the course of the play. Bron­wyn Turei (Nat­a­lya) is self-focused yet makes it easy for us to under­stand why Nat­a­lya is so attract­ive to oth­er char­ac­ters. Gav­in Ruther­ford (Rakitin, the oth­er cent­ral char­ac­ter) dith­ers around won­der­fully, exas­per­at­ing and pathet­ic. Har­riet Preb­ble (Vera) is wist­fully young (as seen on the poster) and Alex Buyck (Kolya (played by Felix Stein­er on altern­ate nights) brings a delight­ful energy to the stage which con­trasts with the las­sit­ude of the adults. This leth­argy is delib­er­ate, to reflect the hot sum­mer days and the appar­ent notion that noth­ing hap­pens in the coun­try.  Peter Hamb­leton (Shpi­gel­sky) is an excep­tion to this, bust­ling around the oth­er char­ac­ters with his thoughts and opin­ions. He has a won­der­ful phys­ic­al com­edy scene with Car­mel McGlone (Liza­veta) who uses her phys­ic­al skills to good advant­age as well. Simon Leary (Bely­aev) is suit­ably bland as the young tutor while Andrew Pater­son (Schaaf) is expans­ive in con­trast.

Noth­ing changes yet everything changes in this very good play.