Cate Blanchett has been circling Broadway since her 2006 New York debut in “Hedda Gabler” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. She will finally alight on the Great White Way later this year in “The Present,” which Andrew Upton has freely adapted from Anton Chekhov’s novice play known as “Platonov.”The production, which premiered in Sydney, Australia last August, has a typically Chekhovian milieu: a country estate, a once-wealthy widow, a dyspeptic womanizer, a gathering of self-deluded misfits, and gallons of vodka. Upton, who is Blanchett’s husband, has updated the play from pre-revolutionary Russia to the post-Perestroika 1990s and filled the acrid air with the regret and nostalgia that often accompanies birthdays. In this case, it’s a landmark 40th for Anna Petrovna, the mercurial widow created by Blanchett opposite Richard Roxburgh, playing a priapic Platonov who still carries a yen for she who got away. Reprising his direction of the play is John Crowley (“Pillowman,” “A Steady Rain”) who recently received an Oscar nomination for Best Film for his new film, “Brooklyn.”Blanchett and Roxburgh have paired off before in New York. They starred in a production of “Uncle Vanya” at City Center in 2012, and in this new potboiler they are as “electrifying as ever,” according to Nancy Groves, writing about “The Present” in The Guardian. The critic praised Upton’s ability to wrestle into recognizable form the 300-pages of Chekhov’s original manuscript, which was not discovered until 1920, six years after the Russian playwright’s death. The melancholy is there, wrote Groves, but “Less expected are the laughs — three full hours of them — which stop just shy of the play’s dramatic denouement and are than a match for an Apatow.”Despite her extraordinary film career — two Oscars out of seven nominations, including this year’s “Carol” — Blanchett’s commitment to theater has been prolific and constant, fueled by her loyalty to The Sydney Theatre Company. She headed Australia’s internationally-acclaimed rep company with Upton from 2008 through 2013, and brought their productions of “Hedda,” “Streetcar Named Desire,” “The Maids,” and “Uncle Vanya” to New York — the first two to BAM, the latter ones to City Center. “The Present,” which will mark the STC’s Broadway debut in association with producer Stuart Thompson, will have a limited thirteen-week run. This is becoming the new normal for vehicles powered by movie stars and its opening will no doubt coincide with the lucrative holiday season when premium tickets are, well, at a premium. Tickets will go on sale some time over the summer and are likely to be snapped up faster than you can say, “Nostrovia!”
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