A Month in the Country (play)

A Month in the Country
Konstantin Stanislavski (left) and Olga Knipper (right)
as Rakitin and Natalya in
the Moscow Art Theatre's production in 1909
Written byIvan Turgenev
CharactersNatalya Petrovna
Mikhail Rakitin
Aleksei Belyaev
Vera
Shpigelsky
Arkadi Islaev
Lizaveta Bogdanovna
Bolshintsov
Schaaf
Anna Semenovna
Kolya
Katya
Matvei
Date premiered1872
Original languageRussian
GenreComedy
SettingThe Islaev country estate in the 1840s

A Month in the Country (Russian: Месяц в деревне, romanized: Mesiats v derevne) is a play in five acts by Ivan Turgenev, his only well-known work for the theatre.[1] Originally titled The Student, it was written in France between 1848 and 1850 and first published in 1855 as Two Women. The play was not staged until 1872, when it was given as A Month in the Country at a benefit performance for the Moscow actress Ekaterina Vasilyeva (1829–1877), who was keen to play the leading role of Natalya Petrovna.[2]

  1. ^ According to Richard Freeborn, in: Turgenev, Ivan. A Month in the Country, Oxford World's Classics (1991), Introduction, p. x.
  2. ^ Proscenium Publications programme note for the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford revival (1994)