Soph Metcalf, William DeMeritt, Kimberlee Walker, Sam Adegoke, Jordan Lage, Sarah Long, Sam Underwood, Spencer Aste, Amelia Mason (Photo: Russ Rowland)
The Real Ivanov
by Deb Miller on August 24, 2026
Anton Chekhov’s four-act drama Ivanov took him only ten days to write. First performed in 1887, the play was not well received, but the author successfully revised it as a tragicomedy about despair, and it was restaged in 1889.
Initiative Productions’ The Real Ivanov, the original, 1887 play adapted and directed by Laura Strausfeld, is now having a limited Off-Broadway engagement at Classic Stage Company. As noted by Strausfeld, she preserved all the major characters and almost every line of Chekhov’s original. This powerful version examines depression, rampant misunderstanding, socio-economic status, and the quest for upward mobility.
Over the past year, Nikolai Ivanov (the outstanding Sam Underwood, who also produced the show), who is in his mid-30s, has fallen deeply into debt and overwhelming despondency. He can’t afford to pay his workers and no longer feels any love for his kindhearted but neglected wife of five years, Anna (Ivory Aquino, whose voice is at times hard to hear). She had renounced her Jewish faith to be accepted by his Russian Orthodox family, was disinherited by her own as a result, and, unbeknownst to herself, is dying of tuberculosis.
Ivory Aquino, Sam Underwood (Photo: Russ Rowland)
When young Dr. Lvov (Hagan Oliveras) informs him of her diagnosis and her need for care and attention, Ivanov declines to take her to Crimea for her recovery, as Lvov suggests. Nor will he take her to see her estranged parents, citing his financial difficulties. Instead of staying with Anna, he attends a party at the home of his friend Lebedev (the engaging Spencer Aste) and his wife Zinaida (an equally engaging Sarah Long), to whom he owes 9000 rubles. Their naïve 20-year-old daughter Sasha (a convincing Amelia Mason) is infatuated with him and acts on her attraction, believing she understands his dejection and could make him feel better again. They kiss, just as Anna, who, with Lvov, followed him to the party, enters the room.
The witnessed transgression leads Anna, wrongly, to accuse him of infidelity throughout their marriage. Ivanov, angry and defensive, denies the claims and reveals her fatal illness to her. The incident also incites the outspokenly moral and self-described “honest man” Lvov to criticize him repeatedly for the maltreatment of his wife. The doctor believes, and openly expresses, that Ivanov married her for her money, which she never received due to her religious conversion.
The play’s final act takes place a year later. Anna has succumbed to consumption, her death accelerated by her husband’s neglect. He and Sasha are set to marry, with the whole company in attendance. Will she provide the happiness he needs to alleviate his ongoing distress, or will he, and she, recognize the damage he could cause her, as he did his first wife?
Sam Adegoke, Sam Underwood, Amelia Mason, Spencer Aste (Photo: Russ Rowland)
Under Strausfeld’s direction, the actors move actively on, off, and around the stage. They briefly address all sides of the audience directly, which keeps us involved in the key points of the plot and Chekhov’s telling observations about humankind. They effectively inject touches of dark humor into their characterizations, rendering the central theme at times funny, though ultimately disastrous.
Underwood turns in a consummately empathetic, award-worthy portrayal of Ivanov. His entire body bespeaks his unrelenting melancholy, from his defeated posture, pained facial expression, and distressed voice, to his fidgeting fingers clasped behind his back. He insightfully relays the lack of human understanding at the center of the play (“I don’t understand you, you don’t understand me, and least of all do we understand ourselves”) which drives the characters but in no way alleviates their tensions.
The excellent Sam Adegoke brings the laughs as Misha Borkin, a distant relative and manager of Ivanov’s estate. Generally seen as the life of the party, he is prone to drinking vodka (lots of it) and imagining schemes (often untenable) to make money, and shocks Ivanov, who obviously doesn’t like him, with a frightening prank that opens the show and foreshadows its conclusion.
Jordan Lage, laughably annoying as Ivanov’s boisterously misanthropic uncle Count Shabyelsky, mocks everyone, including Jews, and agrees to marry the widow Babakina. She is the high-spirited daughter of a rich merchant. Played with infectious zest by Kimberlee Walker, Babinka is excited at the thought of becoming a Countess and agrees to wed, even though her intended is much older and clearly after her fortune. William DeMeritt as Kosyk, an excise officer, and Soph Metcalf as Avdotya, a woman about whom we know little, round out the ensemble; both are effective in their supporting roles.
Scenic designer Jiyoun Chang has provided a minimalist set, so the focus remains on the characters, their story and emotions, without distraction. Tim Rempel’s few props – most notably, the heavily imbibed vodka and the guns at the opening and ending – are of the utmost significance to the distinctive personalities and the unfolding of the narrative. Ella Matza’s period-style costumes help to define the era and the characters’ states of mind. Dramatic lighting (also by Chang) sets the mood, and Brandon Bulls’ startling sound design leaves us with an unseen conclusion.
That ending shifts the play from comic to tragic, in keeping with the signature style of Chekhov and the profoundly troubled psyche of the real Ivanov.
The Real Ivanov
At Classic Stage Company
136 East 13th St.
Running time: One hour and 40 minutes, no intermission
Through September 19, 2026
