LOVE GONE AWRY
Frank J. Morlock's translation of the Edmond Guiraud play Anna Karenina by Borgo Press is a brilliant adaptation to the stage of Leo Tolstoy's classic novel. Anna falls in love with the dashing Count Vronsky, despite her best efforts. When her husband refuses a divorce, the two escape to Venice in order to live together happily without censure. This state of bliss is not long-lasting, for Vronsky becomes restless and rejoins the military. He puts Anna to one side, choosing his career over love and in despair she throws herself in front of a train to die and be free of the shame that has come upon her.
The play opens with a scene in Oblonsky household, as a pretty French governess is playing with the children. What I found intriguing was the fact it opened on a pleasant note with all well in the world, whereas the novel begins with those famous lines, "happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys' house." Personally I rather like this change, since the story is depressing and adding in some light happy moments helps alleviate the tension. In the full length novel, the story of Kitty and Levin supply the tender family pictures, but since that storyline had to be cut to keep the plot slim enough for a play, I think Guiraux made a good choice of inserting one at the beginning. Unfortunately, some of Tolstoy's characteristic understanding and sensitivity toward women was entirely lost in this opening of the play. The original novel showed that the husband, Stiva, had been having a full on affair with the governess for quite some time, whereas in the play it is depicted as his merely trying to give her a little kiss and his wife, Dolly, completely overreacted. The novel gave the impression initially of Stiva being in the wrong and poor Dolly the one we should sympathize with until eventually Tolstoy writes Stiva in such a way that we pardon him. Guiraux's play gives the opposite impression-- that Dolly was in the wrong to be so harsh and that Stiva was the innocent victim. One of the reasons I admire Tolstoy is that, as a woman, I am always impressed with the insight he has into the way we think and feel. The play, overall, has a clearly masculine brush to it which is quite apparent and a bit offsetting to a female reader. The fact a man wrote the play becomes especially evident by the fact that, once the women are offstage, Guiraux reverts to some beautiful writing right on track with the characters Tolstoy created. A particularly brilliant little piece comes between the two friends Levin and Stiva:
Levin: So-- should I throw myself before her today? I still haven't said anything to Kitty. But perhaps, your wife-- her sister-- or you, even your mother-in-law,-- because I am not sure of the sympathy of the Prince. Anyway you understand me.
Stiva: (laughing) Yes, though you're still not very clear. (15)
Through Morlock's translation, and the original playwright, each of the two characters comes through perfectly. We see on the one hand a bumbling gentleman farmer whose heart is in the right place, and on the other Stiva who knows his friend so well that he sees right through the words, and yet finds a way to show his own superiority at the same time.
I greatly admire the way a lot of backstory was got through on pages 20-21 which takes several chapters in the novel. Instead it is delivered in a clever, winning sort of crisp back and forth like a ball tossed about between the actors. The ability to condense a book of over 700 pages to a play of 158 and yet not be bogged down by useless exposition is quite astounding. Guiraux has carefully edited the story down in a way that is exquisite. I saw a movie version of Anna Karenina with Sean Bean where they mercilessly chopped and hacked at the plot to the point where it made absolutely no sense and was a series of disjointed, though beautifully filmed, random scenes. This play is a firm onward moving series of connected threads that the filmmakers would have done well to emulate. While several of the acts of this play took a few minutes to reorient oneself with, such as knowing it was St. Petersberg and not Moscow during the steeplechase, this is a stage play and that sort of jump is to be expected. In all the acts, within a page or less the situation was explained in a clever, interesting sort of way and there was never any reaction of "where are we, what's going on" for long.
Another aspect of Guiraux's play which I found refreshing were the scenes with children. In Tolstoy's writing they tend to feel like set decorations that are there for the purposes of the plot and little else. This play causes them to come to life, as it were, and become their own unique personalities. Guiraux chose to portray Anna and her husband's issues as a recurring motif which helped connect the story, in particular page 53 and 84 where the two are alone together and the true nature of their relationship comes to the surface-- or rather lack of a relationship.
Morlock's translation helps highlight the wit of the conversations, such as between Levin and Koznishev on page 63:
Koznishev: Ah, you're indeed amorous, poor Constantin, although you speak like a poet.
Levin: It's true. I speak and you write.
I do have a few complaints with the translation, however. Whenever the characters become upset they keep telling each other to "shut up!" I don't know if it is the sort of set of people that I tend to frequent, but I highly doubt that the high society of the Russian court would be shouting their equivalent of "shut up!" at each other. It is quite rude and a pair of words which I hope shall never escape my own lips. I believe I would die of humiliation on the spot, and I daresay they would have thought the same, particularly during the time period this is set in. I believe in one instance of the play it was translated as "be quiet" which is a much better choice of words. "Silence", "Cease your chatter" or some other equivalent might have been more in keeping with the sort of social strata and historical use of language.
Pages 111-112 had rather too many uses of the word 'love'. I understand it is most likely the fault of Guiraux, rather than Morlock, but it became almost comedic. During a crucial scene moving the pace toward Anna's demise, I found myself laughing because of a scene in the Gene Kelly film "Singing in the Rain", which made fun of early talking film dialogue. At one point an actor knelt to his lady love saying "I love you, I love you, I love you," over and over while the audience was in hysterics. I believe the choice words a young man shouted at the screen were, "did someone get paid for writing this dialogue?" It seemed out of keeping with the rest of the play Anna Karenina which was quite consistently well written and engaging. After two pages of seeing "love" almost every other word it became a major distraction. I believe the problem here was the fact Edmond Guiraux was French and that is, perhaps, they way they thought and spoke. It was most definitely a French, rather than a Russian scene. It is quickly forgiven, for the problem lasted only for a brief space of the play.
In general, Morlock's translation sparkles and comes alive, almost calling to be read aloud. My particular favourite phrase he chose was "the living horror" for the nickname that Anna's son gives Lidia Ivanova. It describes her perfectly, and I was very favourably impressed by the intuitive grasp of the English language possessed by Morlock, other than a few very minor slips.
This is an excellent translation of a very strongly written play and a great tribute to Leo Tolstoy's novel. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the original book, as well as those who appreciate a good play. If you know of a local theatre who is looking for ideas on a unique production, send them a copy. I, for one, would love to see this gem of a play on the stage where it belongs.
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By Alexa Chipman: 2 October, 2009