Word: tusenbach
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Laboring under the burden of a broken toe, Bellucci nevertheless is eloquent and convincing, especially in the beautifully acted love scenes with Masha. Chris Clemenson takes the awkward character of Tusenbach and fills it out with sympathy and skill. Tusenbach's paeans to labor can easily turn into sermonizing and his devotion to Irina into sickening self-abasement, but Clemenson doesn't self-dramatize the role. He transcends the limiting qualities of the part as Chekhov wrote it to create to subtle portrait of human suffering, weltschmerz...
Olga and Masha urge Irina to accept a proposal of marriage from an oddly self-mocking anti-hero named Baron Tusenbach (Austin Pendleton). Though Irina does not love him, she does deeply respect him and reluctantly agrees. But Irina is besieged by another suitor, a man as menacing as a bayonet thrust, Staff Captain Solyony (Rene Au-berjonois), who is romantically desperate for her love. Solyony challenges the baron to a duel, and all dreams end with a pistol shot...