This is a classic play; it’s very funny and deeply humane.
Directed by Mark Kilmurry, this is the second production of the play I’ve seen this year. I’d happily see it again.
Chekhov follows the usual comic trope of outsiders disrupting the stable world of convention. (Think Benedict and Don John arriving in Messina in Much Ado.) Chekhov’s twist is that the interlopers don’t energise the original inhabitants, they enervate them.
Professor Serebryakov and his young wife, Yelena, have come to live at the family estate, and they bring with them indolence. Vanya realises it’s contagious, but can’t remain immune.
Though written in late 19th century Russia, the play is provocatively relevant. It juxtaposes two questions our society continues to wrestle with: Who am I? versus What is to be done? Vanya thinks he’s a failure, that his life has been a waste. Understandably, he’d like to blame others. But is this really the way forward?
Joanna Murray-Smith’s adaption retains the original setting (there’s a samovar, there are peasants) but the language is our modern vernacular, allowing Chekhov’s brilliance to shine.
Under Kilmurry’s direction, a terrific cast honour Chekhov’s famed honesty and truthfulness.
Out of the crooked timber of humanity, Chekhov creates a confronting beauty. Everyone is unfortunate, flawed and foolish – and still utterly lovable. (Even the pompous old professor, played wonderfully by David Lynch; his awkward, explanation-requiring, Gogol joke is comic gold.) Everyone’s in love with the wrong person. No one’s advice is quite right for anyone else. I don’t think this is a spoiler, but proceed with this paragraph at your own risk. Sonya’s beautiful final speech might be right for her, but can it really mean that much for her Uncle Vanya? But he accepts it, in silence; it’s what his niece can bring to the table, and if he has grown at all through the events of the play, he’s learnt to listen without criticism.
Yalin Ozucelik as Vanya offers an irresistible figure of both hilarity and pathos. Chantelle Jamieson as Yelena initially plays indolence in the key of annoyance, a surprising choice, but one which pays off magnificently, delivering a second act of intensely moving vulnerability. Tim Walter, the visiting doctor who sets the women’s hearts afire, beautifully balances charm and dissolution. Abbey Morgan as Sonya offers a performance that is gloriously natural, an encapsulation of the Chekhovian genius; humanity in its unadorned simplicity, in its labyrinthine complexity, in its troubled passage through the sea of time, guided by hope and threatened by despair.
Paul Gilchrist
Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov, adapted by Joanna Murray-Smith
at Ensemble until 31 August
Image by Prudence Upton
Theatre Red 