Like most plays by Eugene Ionesco, "The Chairs" is both a witty prank and a powerful metaphysical parable.


The story about the sweet, nonagenarian husband and wife who frantically entertain a household of non-existent guests is as packed with raucous, physical humor as it is with incisive insight into the harsh mysteries of the human experience.


Sergei Yursky, one of Russia's most respected actors for 25 years, has long wanted to take a shot at the play. After three decades of working up to it, he has finally joined with the Contemporary Play Theater and his wife, the fine actress Natalya Tenyakova, to realize his dream.


He probably waited too long. For all the production's warmth and for all the affection Yursky and Tenyakova openly show for their characters, the result is only modestly successful.


Ionesco himself wrote that the aged characters must be played by young actors with the stamina to race about madly, interacting with the imagined guests who are represented by empty chairs on the stage.


Unable to do that, Yursky and Tenyakova focused on their characters' touching, inner simplicity. Gaining a good deal in sentiment, they lose much of the humor and angst of Ionesco's original.


Yursky's na•ve old man, with his frumpy manner and weathered face that looks as though it was chiseled in stone, is a child lost in the awkward body of an adult. He is certain that he had the secret and the power to save mankind, but nobody ever paid him any mind.


As his loving and supportive wife, Tenyakova reassures him that he is so talented, he could be anything he wants to be. The irony is that when he can't even properly strike a match to light a kerosene lamp, she merely stretches her hands out before her and lights it as if by magic.


Finally, the old man resolves to invite a houseful of prominent people to listen to a lecture based on the wisdom he has acquired in life. But, before the lecture can be delivered, death appears as the evening's star guest, taking the old pair together. That, and the illiteracy of the orator they leave behind, guarantees that whatever secrets the old man possessed will remain forever unknown.


There is always a problem in transferring Western metaphysics to Russian soil. The European who is alienated from his surroundings is almost always a complete exile. He is not only rejected by man and society, but by God and nature, too. The Russian, no matter what the tribulations, invariably retains links at least with nature. It is one of the primary sources for the legendary Russian soul.


That is just what limits this version of "The Chairs." Lacking the sufficient theatrical energy, it is too soulful to capture fully Ionesco's bite.





"The Chairs" (Stulya), a production of the Contemporary Play Theater and Sergei Yursky's ACT-ors ARTel, plays March 4 at 7 P.M. at the Contemporary Play Theater on Trubnaya Square. For information, call 200-0756. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.