A Month in the Country
- Donmar Warehouse
- Booking details
- Booking until: Saturday, 3 October 2026
A Month in the Country description
About the Show
Natalya Petrovna's summer on her husband's country estate follows its usual pattern until Aleksey Belyayev arrives as tutor to her son. Natalya, admired for years by the family friend Michel Rakitin, finds she cannot look away from the newcomer. Nor can Vera, her teenage ward. What follows is a summer of watching, guessing and saying nothing.
A Month in the Country was written by Ivan Turgenev in 1850 and is performed here in Brian Friel's version, which premiered at the Gate Theatre in Dublin in 1992 and was staged in London by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1999. The Donmar Warehouse production drew four stars from The Stage, which described it as a "bittersweet drama of stifling manners and unrequited passion".
Cast and Creatives
The production is directed by Lyndsey Turner, an Olivier Award winner whose work includes Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch at the Barbican and The Crucible for the National Theatre and in the West End. This version is by the Irish dramatist Brian Friel, author of Translations and Dancing at Lughnasa. The set is designed by Leslie Travers, with lighting by Tim Lutkin, sound by Max Pappenheim, music by Angus MacRae and movement by Anna Morrissey.
Sophie Okonedo plays Natalya Petrovna, having won a Tony Award for A Raisin in the Sun and an Evening Standard Award for Antony and Cleopatra at the National Theatre, with an Academy Award nomination for Hotel Rwanda. Alistair Petrie (Sex Education) plays Rakitin and Patrick Gibson (Shadow and Bone) plays Belyayev, with Rachelle Diedericks as Vera, Thomas Arnold as Arkady and Susan Brown, Daniel Rigby, Mark Hadfield, Michael Hodgson, Jonathan Livingstone, Jessica Brindle and Amanda Wilkin completing the company.
Why You Should Watch It
This is Turgenev at close quarters in a 251-seat theatre, played by a company led by one of the finest stage actors working in Britain. Book tickets to see how one summer's infatuation takes a household apart.
