Uncle Vanya

A blended family tries to co-exist under one roof in a country estate.  There is a lot of tension, aggravated by unreasonable expectations, deferred dreams, financial worries, spinsterhood, aging and declining health.  The dialogue is all in Russian and the stage consists merely of "space" and doors, a table, and chairs.  Yet this was one of the best plays that Greg and I have seen and definitely the best Chekov production that we've seen (and we've seen two other highly reviewed productions of The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard in the past five years.)  It has stayed with us and engendered much thought and even anxiety.  We've seen these people before and felt their pain.

The production of Uncle Vanya at BAM was by the Maly Drama Theatre of St. Petersburg and the Russian cast obviously had Chekov in their blood.  We found that listening to the Russian while reading the supertitles added to our appreciation of Chekov's lyricism.  We were amazed at how topical this play, first performed in 1889, remains.  Vanya has managed his family's estate at the expense of his own ambition, loyally and resentfully sending proceeds to support his brother-in-law, Professor "Alexander" Serebriakov.  Professor Alexander is adored by all the women-Vanya's mother, his niece Sonya, and Alexander's second wife Elena, the woman Vanya realizes he has loved for years. (Alexander had been married to Vanya's sister and Sonya's mother who died).  Professor Alexander is sick with gout and arthritis, unhappy in his retirement, and faced with the realization that after all these years in academia no one really cares about his work. Ouch.  Meanwhile, the family friend Doctor Astrov is falling in love with Elena and is loved by plain Sonya, who has also sacrificed her life to support her father.  Astrov  also has a passion for helping people through his medicine and as an environmentalist, but despairs that no one cares about what will happen to their world in  100 years.  The peasants and landowners are just ekeing out their existence in the moment. And the audience, 100 years from the time of the play was written, know that his fears were justified.

The director, Lev Dodin, wrote a beautiful commentary in the program which I'll quote here because I can't do the play justice:  "Life flows by, and sooner or later a man begins to see his years lived as a treasure he didn't manage to put to good use. He starts to see visions of other possible but unlived lives.  In these other lives all his secret dreams come true, all his hopes are fulfilled, all his sweetest fantasies become real.  The man furiously burns up the past, denies the present, and gives himself completely to this other life which he could have lived, but didn't manage to.  The fuller the man undestands life, the sharper he feels this gap, this contradiction which grows into a tragedy.  Time goes by and gradually you are faced with a choice-to either refuse this life completely, or to find courage to live out the life given to you by God and fate, which you've been carrying out-alone-with your will power and personality. (My italics).

This is a  tragi-comedy and there were certainly many lighter moments in the play.   Finally,though, it is Sonya's faith and resilience that ends the play with a vision of the courage that Chekov says is required to live in this world.