Moscow

Lacey has decided that her life is too much like that of a Chekhov character — one or both of the Mashas. She’s unhappily married, unfulfilled, and 45 years old. Her elderly parents have health issues, and her husband hates paella. And so she’s taken to dressing in black, mourning her life until she can think what to do with it. Her brother Lionel also seems to be drifting; Meeting Grounds, his homey coffee shop, faces stiff competition from Starbucks, but he seems unable or unwilling to stand up and fight. Of course their friend CB is adrift too, but he’s always sort of been that way, even before the break up of the long-ago marriage that nobody talks about.

Now comes word that a ball field of sainted childhood memory is to be torn out to make way for an Olive Garden. That gives Lacey a cause to embrace. It’s not a cherry orchard, but it’s what she has. Even more promising, Lacey’s long-lost love Stephen is coming back to town for the first time in 25 years as replacement for an ailing pianist in a series of recitals. At the same time, Lacey’s husband is due to be at an out-of-town medical convention. Hmmm.

Meanwhile, CB’s sister Sammi, consigned to a wheelchair by a sniper’s bullet outside Fallujah, is trying to pull her life together. This consists partly in keeping Iraq in a lockbox, bringing it out only to share with her therapy group, and trying to keep on with her dancing (“anything Astaire can do, but backwards and in a wheelchair”). She would also like Lionel to hire Joey, a sweet and streetwise young skateboarder. This would not only help Lionel in the shop, it might keep Joey, who has no home, no family, and no prospects, from enlisting. If he’s sleeping outside anyway, he reasons, he might as well do it where it’s warm. And maybe get a signing bonus too.

When Olive Garden switches its sights from the old ball field to a target closer to home, Lacey, Lionel, CB, and Sammi realize that they stand at the crossroads of Fate and Free Will. They can follow the path of the three Prozorov sisters and the cherry orchard-owning Ranevskys and continue to let life roll over them. Or they can face up to the scary changes in their lives required to save the coffee shop and, in effect, themselves.

Chekhov&Friend Like Chekhov, Next Train to Moscow is an ensemble work that finds humor and heart in the ordinariness of everyday life. Characters wrestle with the mysteries of change and the calculus of regret. They hope for lasting happiness and perhaps someone compatible to love. Unlike Chekhovian characters, however, they have before them the lessons Chekhov offers. Lacey especially, with her fixation on Masha, is committed to shaking off the kind of ennui and resistance to change that binds the Russians to their Fate. Gifted with a forceful personality and a glimpse of a better future, she urges the others to join her on the next train to Moscow.

Locomotive image by George Shuklin (The last steam locomotive built in Russia); Latte art: Mortefot from flickr.com