Play reveals the hidden desire that exposes an unfulfilled wife

Aislín McGuckin has the wit and elegance to play the bored Natalya, whose life of stifling privilege is smashed by her desire for her son’s tutor, the 21-year-old Aleksei, in Turgenev’s play, A Month in the Country, says Padraic Killeen

A YEAR ON from quietly stealing the show in the Abbey Theatre’s production of Heartbreak House, Aislín McGuckin is the centre of another summer extravaganza — the Gate Theatre’s new production of Ivan Turgenev’s comedy of manners, A Month in the Country.

As the bored wife of a Russian landowner, McGuckin again plays a woman of glamorous idleness and fierce wit — traits that the Fermanagh actress, with her striking good looks and elegance, can pull off with ease.