It could be subtitled: ‘How to Find Faith in Humanity – or Not’. This early Chekhov is a glorious ensemble comedy about the fact that the future is looking bleak. Here it gets its first Australian mainstage production. What a fantastic mix of rage and silliness; its characters all torn between making money and getting in on something bigger and more meaningful than themselves. How apt.

Nikolai Ivanov is going mad. His life used to be full of possibility, but now he’s moneyless on an old farm with his mendicant uncle and his inexplicably happy if slightly criminal cousin. He’s in debt to his neighbours, he has the hots for their daughter, and nothing much makes any sense to him anymore. Oh, and his wife is dying. Life’s all healthcare and making payments. What’s the alternative? There must be an alternative. There must be an alternative!

Artistic Director Eamon Flack directs John Bell, Ewen Leslie and an excellent cast of tragic clowns in a production set very much here and now… in the Age of Abbott…oh… no, wait… Turnbull!