Adapting any work of fiction for the stage has its pitfalls, especially the work of an author with as much internalization as D.H.Lawrence. Allan Miller has taken the action of this novella and woven a somewhat more conventional love triangle than in the original, but the result is basically stageworthy. What's lost in his approach however is much of the original language, The story starts "The two girls were usually known by their surnames, Banford and March," for example. In the play they're known simply as Jill and Nellie. And while the author has retained the WWI background of the piece, there's little in the set or the costumes of this production to suggest the period. The basic psychodynamics and potential lesbian relationship between the two woman is much more contemporary, and the symbolism of Henry the hunter with the spirit of a fox seems imposed, less a figment of Nellie's confusion. The contrasts between the characters inner lives and the meager wartime existence they're living--two woman escaping the city, Henry on leave from his Canadian regiment might be stronger anchored to the early 20th century.
The director, Lilia Levitina, has cast three young local actors in this long one-act. Grace Summers, last seen around the BCA in "Promises, Promises" plays sturdy Nellie March, while Robin Rapoport, seen with Molasses Tank at CWT last fall is frail Jill Banford. Both fit their roles, but neither is old enough to capture women around 30 striving to survive on a failing farm. Greg Raposa is right as young Henry Grenfel, but modernized the part becomes a typical stud rather than the mythic man-beast of Lawrence's imagination. Levitina's expressionistic style however goes a way toward's restoring the tales underlying symbolism. The physical acting skills of the cast are essential to the effort, since some of the action is choreographed by Felix Ivanov to express the undercurrents of the play.
Levitina and her design team ( Masha Lifshin and Leonid Osseny, setting; Emily Romm, music; Olga Ivanov and Irina Romm, costumes and props) have fashioned a simple yet complete world for the play in Calderwood's Hall A, the rehearsal room at the top of the grand staircase which is proving to be a worthy successor to cramped Leland, now out of service. All six have training in the traditions of expressionist theatre which go back to the glory days of Russian Theatre immediately after the Revolution, before the party squashed all modernity with the dictat of "socialist realism." The production, well lit by Matthew Breton, shows the power of reinterpretation which fueled what became a new way of looking at theatre in the West. The set has a simple fireplace and cutout wall stage right while the scrim back wall panels overhung with real branches suggest the woods which crowd in on the farm. A chopping block up right and an area for sitting down right complete the scene. The costumes suit the play even if they don't establish a period. The main costume prop is a net shawl which Nellie is trying to finish decorating, which becomes the table cloth, but more importantly, a shroud which ultimately unites the two women.
This is an interesting production of a piece extracted from a much more complex psychological work, the sort that led eventually to Lawrence's Lady Chatterly. Levitina and her talented cast have found ways to illuminate the symbolism of the piece, creating interesting moments for a text that doesn't quite capture Lawrence's original even bleaker and more penetrating vision. Some sort of narration might in fact make this a better dramatic script.