CHARACTER BREAKDOWN:
2F, 2M
Valentina Nrovka – A vivacious woman, “probably in her
sixties, but it is hard to tell.” Self-absorbed, over-the-top, and in control. Often
speaks with a patronizing tone. Has a soft spot for Paris.
Sophia Yepileva – Valentina’s daughter, thirty-six
years old. Delicate, anxious, and self-effacing. A dependable doormat, for the
first time, Sophia is trying to be stand up for herself against her harsh
mother.
Assistant Curator – In his mid-thirties. A weak, nervous man
who works at the Leningrad Art Museum. An academician. Greatly intimidated by
Valentina and Sophia.
Peter Linitsky – Sixty-two years old, balding, and the
gentle lover of Sophia. Constantly seeking Sophia’s approval. “His manner is
apologetic.”
PLOT SUMMARY:
Setting: A
large room in the Hermitage Art Museum in Leningrad 1956. Late afternoon. Guérin’s
painting Morpheus and Iris is on
display on the back wall. Tables and red plush hard chairs are pushed aside.
The elderly
yet energetic Valentina Nrovka is summoned by the Hermitage Art Museum in Leningrad to
confirm the authenticity of a painting – The Bay of Nice - attributed to the famous artist (and her old art
teacher) Matisse. Her nervous daughter Sophia Yepileva accompanies her to the
museum, and uses the outing to speak seriously with her mother. Overcoming her
self-effacing manner, Yepileva confesses that she wishes to leave her husband
Grigor and marry an ambitionless but kind older man, Peter Linitsky.
Remembering her past as a selfish bohemian art student in Paris, Nrovka
attempts to convince Yepileva that she shouldn’t drastically change her life in
search of indulgence, freedom, and self-actualization. Nrovka explains that
Yepileva would ruin her husband’s influence as a member of the Party through
divorce, and likely, Yepileva would not feel complete by marrying this boring
man twice her age and socially beneath her. Eventually, however, Nrovka relents and agrees to financially support her daughter, and reveals to the Assitant Curator
that the painting is, in fact, a Matisse.
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