The exploration of latent tensions in human relationships, of the underground psychological currents that fuel seemingly ordinary social behaviors, constitutes one of the most fertile territories of dramaturgy, which found its most emblematic twentieth-century expression in the theater of the absurd and the tradition of the grotesque. In an era like ours, marked by a growing medicalization of emotional distress and a paradoxical normalization of social anxiety, it is illuminating to revisit the first artistic manifestations of what we might call a modern anatomy of hysteria, which found in the young Anton Chekhov one of its most lucid and merciless observers in pre-revolutionary Russia. The German master Peter Stein, a seminal figure of contemporary directing who has profoundly marked European theater since the 1970s, brought to the stage at Teatro Arena del Sole in Bologna “Nervous Breakdowns. Three One-Act Plays by Anton Chekhov”, a performance awarded with Le Maschere 2024 for directing, confirming his vocation to plumb with extraordinary sensitivity the masterpieces of world dramaturgy.
Sampaoli, Fogacci, Crippa, Stein, Averone, Basile, Scatigno in “Crisi di nervi. Tre atti unici di Anton Čechov”, regia di Peter Stein, ph. Tommaso Le Pera, courtesy ERT – Emilia Romagna Teatri
The distinctive feature of Stein’s direction emerges in his ability to balance philological fidelity and contemporary vision: his authorial imprint manifests itself first and foremost in the construction of a rigorous scenic structure, where every gesture and movement of the actors appears to be the result of a long process of elaboration and every scene is rhythmically paced with almost musical precision. The scenic space presents itself as a device that is both essential and flexible: few and selected furnishing elements transform the stage into an environment that seems like the living materialization of a period photograph, as if a daguerreotype suddenly came alive before the spectators’ eyes, restoring the atmosphere of that world poised between tradition and modernity. The costumes, meticulously detailed, contribute decisively to this effect, not merely reproducing the clothing of the period but becoming an integral part of the psychological characterization of the characters, tangible symbols of their social condition and their roles.
“Crisi di nervi. Tre atti unici di Anton Čechov”, regia di Peter Stein, ph. Tommaso Le Pera, courtesy ERT – Emilia Romagna Teatri
As Stein himself emphasizes in introducing these early works by Chekhov, these are dramatic pieces written between 1884 and 1891 after the author, disappointed by the failure of his first dramas, had sworn not to write for serious theater anymore, dedicating himself instead to the “light” genre of vaudeville. This biographical circumstance has given us a series of one-act plays that, beneath the surface of caricatured comedy and extravagant absurdity, hide a fierce analysis of human contradictions, already revealing in embryo those themes that will find full maturation in the great masterpieces of his later phase. What makes Stein’s direction immediately recognizable is precisely his ability to work on the dialectical tension between form and content, between surface comedy and underground drama. Emblematic in this sense is the direction of the actors, called to a delicate interpretative balance: on one hand, they must embody simplified human typologies, with emphatic gestures and tones that border on the exaggeration typical of vaudeville; on the other hand, they are guided to allow the depth, far from comic, of their experiences and their inner universe to shine through precisely through this apparent typification. The more the role requires going “over the top,” the more the inner dramas of the characters emerge with cutting evidence, in a continuous play of masks (even social ones) that crack to reveal the grimace of suffering or the irrationality of an emotion.
“Crisi di nervi. Tre atti unici di Anton Čechov”, regia di Peter Stein, ph. Tommaso Le Pera, courtesy ERT – Emilia Romagna Teatri
In “The Bear,” the first of the three acts on stage, Maddalena Crippa offers a convincing interpretation of the widow Elena Ivanovna Popova, oscillating between an ostentatious mourning and a repressed vitality that explodes in the confrontation with the ex-officer Smirnov, interpreted with engaging impetuosity by Alessandro Sampaoli, who bursts into her living room to collect the unpaid promissory notes of her deceased husband. The actress manages to restore to the character that background of experiences from which springs the madness of her fixations: the widow is a woman trapped in a social role, whose defenses collapse as soon as she finds herself in front of an equally vulnerable male presence behind the facade of brutal determination. The verbal skirmishes between the two protagonists, punctuated by the interventions of the servant Luka (an impeccable Sergio Basile), translate into a choreography of approaches and distancing, where Stein demonstrates his mastery in the use of scenic space as a sounding board for contrasting emotional forces.
“Crisi di nervi. Tre atti unici di Anton Čechov”, regia di Peter Stein, ph. Tommaso Le Pera, courtesy ERT – Emilia Romagna Teatri
Central to the trilogy is “The Harmful Effects of Tobacco,” a monologue entrusted to Gianluigi Fogacci in the role of Ivan Ivanovich Nyukhin, an improvised lecturer and submissive husband of the director of a music school and a girls’ boarding school. Here Stein’s direction is felt in the meticulous work on the actor’s body, transformed into a battlefield where the war between social constraints and desire for rebellion is fought. Fogacci accurately renders the emotional crescendo of a man who, forced by his wife to give a lecture on the harmful effects of tobacco (he himself an inveterate smoker), takes advantage of the occasion to confess to the audience the frustrations stemming from an unhappy marriage. The physicality of the actor – with his sneezes, tremors, asthma attacks – reveals Stein’s acute attention to the specific behavioral tics of the characters, a veritable physical mapping of discomfort that transforms simple everyday gestures into theatrical signs loaded with meaning.
“Crisi di nervi. Tre atti unici di Anton Čechov”, regia di Peter Stein, ph. Tommaso Le Pera, courtesy ERT – Emilia Romagna Teatri
“The Marriage Proposal,” which closes the trilogy, features Alessandro Averone in the role of Ivan Vasilyevich Lomov, a hypochondriac suitor unable to formulate his proposal to the young Natalya (an energetic Emilia Scatigno) due to a pathological shyness that transforms into compulsive quarrelsomeness. The three characters (in addition to the couple, the girl’s father, again interpreted by Sergio Basile) seem possessed by irrational forces that lead them to clash as in a grotesque dance over marginal issues – the ownership of a plot of land or the qualities of a hunting dog – while the real stakes, marriage, remain in the background as a convention to be respected rather than a genuine desire for union. The culminating moment is represented by the daughter’s hysterical attack, transformed by Stein and the remarkable interpretation of Emilia Scatigno into a contemporary dance performance with the sofa, in which the domestic furniture becomes a partner in a choreography of delirium that takes to the extreme that physicalization of hysteria that constitutes the common thread of the entire trilogy.
“Crisi di nervi. Tre atti unici di Anton Čechov”, regia di Peter Stein, ph. Tommaso Le Pera, courtesy ERT – Emilia Romagna Teatri
Notable is the cohesion of the acting ensemble assembled by Stein, which highlights that “collective creative continuity” cited in the directing notes as a founding element of the project. The performers seem to move within a very precise gestural and vocal score, where every movement, every inflection, every look is calibrated to restore the complexity of the psychological nuances of the original text. Particularly effective in this sense is the direction of the actors in moments of emotional crisis, rendered with an expressive physicality that avoids both conventional realism and excessive stylization, finding instead an intermediate path in which the body becomes a theatrical sign of a fragmented interiority. Stein’s direction, while respectful of the original text, does not insist on a philological reconstruction of the Russian atmosphere of the late nineteenth century, but intervenes with subtle contemporary accents, especially in the rhythmic management of the scenes and in the enhancement of those meta-theatrical elements (such as the conference on tobacco addressed directly to the audience) that create a dynamic relationship between stage and audience. In this perspective, we might say that the work of the German director fits into that interpretative line that sees in Chekhov not only the great narrator of Russian society, but also a precursor of the theater of the absurd, capable of capturing the contradictions of human existence with a gaze that is both compassionate and mercilessly lucid.
“Crisi di nervi. Tre atti unici di Anton Čechov”, regia di Peter Stein, ph. Tommaso Le Pera, courtesy ERT – Emilia Romagna Teatri
“Nervous Breakdowns” thus configures itself as an operation of great theatrical intelligence, capable of restoring freshness and contemporary urgency to texts that, despite their apparent lightness, already contain all the seeds of the great Chekhovian dramaturgy: attention to revealing details, irony that borders on the tragic, the ability to capture in the most banal situations the reflection of universal dynamics. Peter Stein, with the scenic wisdom that has made him one of the undisputed masters of contemporary theater, transforms these three episodes into a single, engaging reflection on human fragility, on the thin boundary between social composure and emotional chaos, offering the audience a precious opportunity to rediscover the relevance of a classic under the guidance of one of its most profound connoisseurs.
Info:
Nervous Breakdowns. Three One-Act Plays by Anton Chekhov
directed by Peter Stein
Teatro Arena del Sole di Bologna
www.bologna.emiliaromagnateatro.com
Graduated in art history at DAMS in Bologna, city where she continued to live and work, she specialized in Siena with Enrico Crispolti. Curious and attentive to the becoming of the contemporary, she believes in the power of art to make life more interesting and she loves to explore its latest trends through dialogue with artists, curators and gallery owners. She considers writing a form of reasoning and analysis that reconstructs the connection between the artist’s creative path and the surrounding context.
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