It took the new master of reinvention, director Robert Icke, to make me break my ‘No More Chekov’ rule. Surely he’s the man to turn paint-drying plays into something more animated and interesting?
Well, he starts with a rectangular, canopied wooden platform that slowly moves. His characters have modern clothes and new names, though they are still in essence Chekov’s. He also seems to have added almost an hour to the playing time and slowed the paint-drying down rather than speed it up.
Finally, he provides three short intervals after each act, which was too much temptation for me I’m afraid, and I broke at the second one and came home. It was still a bunch of irritating people talking bollocks. Nowhere near radical enough a reinvention for me.
Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog 
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