Comment on this story What: Anna Karenina When: Thru Oct. 24. Where: Ula Love Doughty Carousel Theatre Cost: Call 974-5161 for ticket info.

Anna gets the title, but Levin gets the glory

by Paige M. Travis

By all imaginable standards, Anna Karenina is living the dream when her story begins. She is a young woman with a nice home, a precious child and a successful husband. But a taste of what she doesn’t have—a passionate, consuming love affair—causes her to give up her security in exchange for, well, something that’s arguably less valuable in late 1800s Russia. Like many leading ladies of Victorian lit, Anna is convinced that love conquers all, while her pursuit of it delivers consequences that’s she’s in no position to handle.

Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina consists of two interwoven stories: one of Anna and her slippery slope, and the other of Levin, a distant acquaintance who struggles to balance his desire to escape the fast-lane lifestyle of Moscow with his longing for true love in bucolic bliss with his unrequited love, Kitty Shcherbatsky.

Helen Edmundson’s stage adaptation has Anna (Connan Morrissey) and Levin (John Feltch) communicating across the temporal plane, navigating the circular stage that’s halved into her realm and his. Levin serves as Anna’s conscience, and she assures him that he’s on the right path, even as she strays from her own. “Where are you now?” they ask each other in turns, shifting the story, sometimes as a defense mechanism to divert attention from their doubt and confusion.

In the beginning, Anna speaks as a young woman—curious, impetuous and frank. Because she is married to a respected government official, she belongs to a society that will protect her, coach her if necessary, if she slips up. Her carousing brother Stiva (T. Anthony Marotta) carries on an affair with his children’s governess, and Anna resents the comparison. “You sound like Stiva,” Levin tells her. “I am not like Stiva!” she replies. Stiva’s affair is tolerated by all but his own wife, Dolly (Erin O’Leary), who eventually forgives him at Anna’s behest (although Stiva continues chasing skirts). But Anna is a woman, held to different standards.

She meets Vronsky (Jeremy Holm), a handsome military officer, on the train to Moscow. The moment is frozen on stage as it is in Anna’s memory. They meet again at a dance, and later at the train station. She indulges his passionate advances, swearing to the questioning Levin that she will stop. “You must stop,” he says. “I will stop.” “I thought you were stopping.” “I am. Just let me have these last few moments.” But Anna doesn’t stop. There is nothing more thrilling in passionate encounters than trying to cease doing something “bad” and continuing despite your best judgment.

So it’s no surprise that Anna, despite her protestations, doesn’t end the affair, even after her husband Karenin (Terry Weber) finds out. The community ignores—and even revels in—subtle displays of the affair; even Karenin agrees to suffer her impropriety if she promises to be more discreet. But Anna is caught up in Vronsky’s furious passion, so much so that she demands a divorce from Karenin, which he ultimately refuses.

While Anna’s story is hopelessly romantic, it’s doomed from the start to an unhappy ending; and the gripey, paranoid bitch she becomes near the end is unsavory. Which explains why Levin ends up being the more interesting character. He is a high-minded landowner who tries to immerse himself in farming and organizing the peasants in lieu of romance after he’s rejected by Kitty (Tracie Merrill), a young woman who was in love with Vronsky until he ditched her for Anna. In a way, Levin is just as adolescent, just as heart-on-his-sleeve, as Anna. He dwells on the meaning of life and the existence of God; he wonders if either exists. He finds peace and simplicity in his land, but he can’t completely forget about Kitty. And when they finally get together, their union is much more satisfying than Anna and Vronsky’s, supporting the play’s staunch stance against infidelity.

Edmundson has succeeded in overlapping the two stories to the benefit of the text—at least as far as I can tell, having never read the novel. The emotion is there: assisted by the spirited, fully engaged cast, we cringe when the society ladies shun Anna, and we cheer when Levin wins the heart of his beloved Kitty. And there are amusing moments—surprisingly funny bits of dialogue and delivery that seem anachronistic but not jarring; in the midst of historical turmoil, such colloquial moments help make these pained characters charming, more human.

If Anna had been armed with stacks of women’s magazines, self-help books and episodes of Oprah, she might have been better prepared to deal with the mistakes she made and her resulting disappointment with life. Instead, at the hands of the middle-aged Tolstoy and his evangelical agenda to punish scandalous females for their trespasses, Anna doesn’t get another chance. In the end, she’s still a young woman, but her dream of true love is over.

October 14, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 42 © 2004 Metro Pulse