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.