On Monday evening, my buddy Jack and I went to see Chekhov Lizardbrain, an entertaining and unusual play inspired by Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters and the life and work of autistic livestock-behavior expert Temple Grandin. It was created and presented by Philadelphia's Pig Iron Theatre Co. and is back in New York as part of the Under the Radar Festival after a critically acclaimed run here in fall 2008.
The play is about a socially awkward botanist named Dmitri who has a more-confident alter ego named Chekhov Lizardbrain. Dmitri has bought a house in his hometown of Oswego, New York, after having gotten a Ph.D. in Portland, Oregon. The house belonged to childhood friends of Dmitri's, three brothers named Peter, Nicholas, and Sascha. Dmitri is trying to remember as much as he can about what led up to his purchase of the house, whose heater has failed in the dead of winter. In the majority of scenes, the brothers wear long underwear, top hats, and fake mustaches and act out fantastical versions of events; in Dmitri's more-realistic recollections, the guys wear regular clothes and work out their real-life family conflict: The two older brothers, who have moved away from Oswego, have to convince Sascha to sell his third of the house he's lived in his whole life, including while caring for their ailing parents.The actors were all great, but extra praise must go to James Sugg, who earned an Obie for his performance as Dmitri/Chekhov Lizardbrain. He passes seamlessly between his two oddball characters.
