The Chiswick Calendar – August 11, 2025 by Simon Thomsett
The double header of one act plays at the Tabard, billed as Shaw vs Chekhov and running to 23rd August is a tasty and perhaps surprisingly frivolous delight.
First up is Chekhov’s The Proposal, a slight but enjoyable tale of a young man’s bumbled attempts to propose to a neighbour’s daughter.
The young man, Ivan, played with nervy charm by Joe Sargent arrives for a meeting with Stepan to ask for his approval for the proposed union. Ivan has chosen to dress formally for the occasion, a choice Stepan mocks as looking as if he is on a “new year’s visit”.
Anthony Wise as Stepan is ingratiating and campily welcoming; dressed in a sort of flock smoking jacket, topped off with a rather worn-out fez, he is given to furtive slugs from a hidden hip flask of vodka and to smothering his guest with unlikely endearments (“My pretty… my angel…”) and much hugging.
When he eventually lets him go, he sends for his daughter, who he suggests is waiting for such a moment as she is “like a love-sick cat”)
Maryann O’Brien as said daughter Natalya initially has no inkling of Ivan’s intentions and readily falls into an argument with him about the ownership of some adjoining land. Ivan makes some particularly inept attempts to put his proposal but is constantly derailed by falling into fundamentally silly arguments about very little.
O’Brien swings wildly from desperate would-be wife to furiously proud defender of petty principles. Matching her in neurotic energy, the stiffly tailcoated Sargent finds his body conspiring against him as a series of random but intense pain attacks threaten to overwhelm him at any moment.
There’s even some well executed slapstick and the whole thing plays out to a satisfying conclusion…
SHAW2020 Theatre Company 