Description
Book SynopsisOh, Misha, it''s terrible to be an educated woman. An educated woman with nothing to do. What am I here for? Why am I alive? They should make me a professor somewhere, or a director of something ... If I were a diplomat I''d turn the whole world upside down ... An educated woman ... And nothing to do.Village schoolmaster Mikhail Vasilyevich has it all: wit, intelligence, a comfortable and respectable life in provincial Russia, and the attentions of four beautiful women - one of whom is his devoted wife As summer arrives and the seasonal festivities commence, the rapidly intensifying heat makes everyone giddy with sunlight, vodka and passion.Michael Frayn's comedy of errors, drawn from Chekhov's untitled and posthumously discovered early play, is a tale of nineteenth-century Russian life replete with classic misunderstandings, irrepressible desires and nostalgia for a vanishing world.
Wild Honey received its premiere in the National Theatre''s Lyttelton space, London, on
Trade ReviewThe triumph of Frayn's translation/adaptation is to have taken all the bones of this immature work and moulded it to offer us a tantalising glimpse of the genius to come -- Lyn Gardner * City Limits *
A brilliant piece of theatre bearing the stigmata of genius -- Michael Billington * Guardian *
A tight, moving and funny new play in four beautifully organised acts that casts equal credit on Chekhov and his adaptor -- Michael Coveney * Financial Times *
Michael Frayn has added a laughing lyricism that brings the elusive comedy of Chekhov into an English idiom -- Ned Chaillet * Wall Street Journal *
One of the most enjoyable plays in London, and Frayn is a hero -- Clive Barnes * New York Post *
Sparkling and highly performable ... The effect is of an old clock completely taken apart and given a new movement. It is still Chekhov, but it is also Frayn -- Michael Ratcliffe * Observer *
