Uncle Vanya –Arcola Theatre, London ****

[written for The Public Reviews]

Hopeless. Despair. Endless. Bored. These are some of the words used by the characters of Chekhov’s melancholic play, Uncle Vanya, which is a meditation on the purposelessness of life and a wasted existence. At the centre of the play is the failed murder of Professor Serebreyakov by his brother-in-law, Vanya. The professor returns home to his country estate with a young and beautiful wife, Yelena, in tow and the pair proceed to disrupt the steady work ethic and routine of the inhabitants. Vanya and the doctor fall in love with the enchanting Yelena and are ruined by it: Vanya driven mad by jealousy of the doctor and the doctor himself overlooking his duty to his patients by being at the estate every day. The professor’s daughter, Sonya, despairs at her unrequited love for the doctor when her only chance for happiness is taken away from her by the intruding Yelena. Finally, the old way of life on the estate is restored when the professor and his wife leave but they have taken all sense of hope with them and Sonya is left consoling the broken Vanya.

You are never in for light entertainment when watching a Chekhov play but this production did have some comic moments, a result of the excellent new translation by the director, Helena Kaut-Howson, and Jon Strickland who plays Vanya. The language is pared-down, untheatrical and colloquial – just as someone might speak today. Yelena’s diction is relatively heightened to show that she is an otherworldly being, ‘with mermaid blood’ as Vanya says. In contrast, the doctor, played by Simon Gregor, is by far the most humorous character, a plain speaker and an excellent drunk. Cleverly, the way the characters express themselves actually prefigures their downfall; the doctor is least hurt by his experiences despite his dalliance with Yelena, but Sonya is almost destroyed by the doctor’s rejection. The doctor is aware that the country is in decline just like his own body – the play opens with him discussing having aged with the family nurse, Nyanya. Later, he shows Yelena the maps he has drawn of the district which record the destruction of the forests. He bemoans the fact that nothing has been built in the spaces the forests once occupied and so his project is to restore them by planting trees. Sonya is inspired by the doctor and finds his voice gentle and mesmerising. She says that his project is genius and beautiful but this high praise is rendered empty when we come to understand that the doctor’s project is as futile as Vanya and Sonya’s work on the estate. Sonya has a harder fall than the doctor because she believed in redemption and beauty whereas the doctor knew all along that the world would come to inevitable destruction.

Destruction is at the heart of the play and it is in Vanya that the drive to extinguish is embodied. Yelena comes across a drunken Vanya attempting to shoot himself with his rifle; he is duly castigated by Nyanya and sent to bed. This urge to destroy shows itself again when the professor suggests selling the estate which Vanya and Sonya have worked hard to maintain while the professor has been away. Vanya’s despair tips him over into madness and he chases the professor, brandishing a gun. He misfires the last bullet so that when he comes to aim at the professor he fires a blank shot and so despairingly shouts ‘bang’, which is funny in its feebleness. All of this is excellently done with Jon Strickland’s Vanya seeming loveably hard-done-by and ferociously despairing by turns. Marianne Oldham’s Yelena is the embodiment of indolence as she slowly moves around the stage like an overfed cat. Hara Yannas deserves special mention as Sonya – she played the character with a very insightful hint of hysteria, always on the brink of tears or laughter or both which I thought summed up the mood of the entire play. The set was carefully put together but there were some extraneous elements such as the red-lit trees on the back wall. Similarly, the music, composed by Boleslaw Rawski, was beautiful but felt overly loud and out of place at times. The substance of the play was too great to be overtaken by the style but it did feel at times that the set, storm effects and music were too prominent. Overall I was impressed by this fresh version in the new Arcola Theatre, which has recently moved into new premises; this is a great quality production with which to usher in a new era of the Arcola.

Runs until 4th June

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