6 minute read
From Russia to Berkeley
By victor cervantes jr., associate producer – new work
Fifty years ago, Berkeley Repertory Theatre took on the vital challenge of sharing Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya with audiences for the first time. Today, we return to this story of disconsolate souls who are working hard to better their everyday lives.
When Chekhov died in 1904, he had only completed five major plays and speculated his plays would only be produced for seven years, at most. For over a century, artists from all over the world have been returning to these works: mining them, interpreting them, translating them, and even breaking them apart to get to the core of…well, what is at the core of Chekhov’s work that continues to compel artists to tell his stories? Why do storytellers like director Simon Godwin return to Chekhov’s narratives, specifically, Uncle Vanya?
To try to understand Chekhov’s enduring spirit, let’s look at a wide range of ways Uncle Vanya has been interpreted by radically different artists throughout the last 125 years.
1899 — Moscow Art Theatre (MAT): The play had its metropolitan premiere at the newly formed MAT under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski (who also portrayed Astrov) following an exhaustive rewrite of Chekhov’s earlier play The Wood Demon, which flopped after its 1889 premiere when half the cast forgot their lines and audiences booed. Upon its premiere, Uncle Vanya was also a failure. Tolstoy, after seeing the production, reportedly shouted, “Where is the drama? What does it consist of?” It played in the provinces for two years before its MAT premiere, earning deep love from theatregoers and amateur theatre makers beyond Moscow. With the subtitle, Scenes from Country Life, its popularity with audiences who lived hundreds of miles from Russia’s two main cities is a part of Chekhov’s legacy: reflecting the rural person’s everyday life.
1962 — Chichester Festival Theatre: After launching a new theatre with two unsuccessful (non-Chekhovian) productions, Artistic Director Laurence Olivier depended on the success of its third production for Chichester’s survival. With an interpretation of Uncle Vanya that referenced the fall of Edwardian aristocracy and “demise of manners,” Olivier took inspiration from Stanislavski to direct and play Astrov with a company that included Michael Redgrave (Vanya), Rosemary Harris (Yelena), and Joan Plowright (Sonya). Hugh Bonneville’s Downtown Abbey co-star Penelope Wilton recently shared her memory of this particular production as the theatrical experience that changed her life: “Chekhov understands that it’s the dreams people have that are so heartbreaking — the shattering of those dreams, but also how you manage afterwards.”
1990s — Vanya on 42nd Street: For three years, acclaimed director Andre Gregory led volunteer actors through workshop performances of Uncle Vanya and other plays to better understand Chekhov’s work. With actors in their street clothes and on a bare, dilapidated stage, the company performed to an invite-only audience. Louis Malle was so moved by what he witnessed that he agreed to capture this ephemeral experience in the film Vanya on 42nd Street, with actors walking through the Theatre District and meeting at the then-abandoned New Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street in New York City, where they staged Uncle Vanya. Using David Mamet’s adaptation of Chekhov’s text, Wallace Shawn as Vanya proclaims, “What’s new? Nothing’s new. Everything’s old.”
2007 — Lake Lucille: Through and around the home of directors Brian Mertes and Melissa Kievman on Lake Lucille in New City, NY, a company of actors would escape to a house from the 1800s for a weeklong Chekhovian retreat. Over the course of many years, they would rehearse for six days and then complete an all-day performance of different plays by Chekhov. In 2007, with two-time Tony-winner Bill Irwin as Vanya (who started the play on an abandoned boat) and Tony-nominee Marin Ireland as Sonya (who ended Act IV on a 30-foot ladder), the company was so focused that even their daily chores supported the crafting of the production: “Irwin served as sommelier, and Ireland, who had spent as much time as she could at the house before the retreat to feel like the ‘lady of the house,’ took out the trash.”
2020 — West End / BBC: After premiering in January 2020, the West End production of Conor McPherson’s new adaptation of Uncle Vanya, directed by Ian Rickson, shut down early due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The production was subsequently recorded in August 2020 at London’s Harold Pinter Theatre, becoming one of the first theatre productions to be filmed during the pandemic, starring Richard Armitage and Toby Jones.
2023 — Off-Broadway: Apparently, one doesn’t need much space to stage Uncle Vanya. Directed by Jack Serio, this retelling reunited Marin Ireland (as Sonya) and Bill Irwin (as Professor Serabyakov) in an apartment loft in New York City alongside titans from the American theatre including Tony-winner David Cromer as Vanya and Tony-winner Will Brill as Astrov. This “hyper-intimate” production was capped at 40 audience members, and the location was kept secret and “off the beaten path” for theatregoers — with a couple characters’ action starting on the fire escape of the loft.
2023–2025 — West End / Lucille Lortel Theatre: After a sold-out run, Andrew Scott (Ripley, All of Us Strangers) brings all nine characters to life in Tony-winner Simon Stephens’ (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) one-man adaptation titled Vanya, premiering at London’s Duke of York’s Theatre in the West End and subsequently filmed by National Theatre Live. During the development process, Scott, Stephens, Rosanna Vize (Set Designer and Co-Creator), and Sam Yates (Director and Co-Creator) shared ideas for the characters through WhatsApp voice messages, and the show features a one-man sex scene. It will make its American debut in March 2025 when it premieres Off-Broadway at the prominent Lucille Lortel Theatre.
Through all these productions, we learn that Chekhov’s stories are simultaneously canonical and ripe for reinvention. In an 1899 letter to his wife Olga Knipper, Chekhov declares, “Art, especially the theatre, is a world you cannot enter without stumbling over the threshold…You must prepare for it, expect it, and follow your path.”
Quotations from The Moscow Art Theatre Letters, by Jean Benedetti; “My Favourite Play: Penelope Wilton” by David Benedict in The Stage; Letters on the Short Story, the Drama, and Other Literary Topics by Anton Chekhov, edited by Louis S. Friedland; “Interview: Andrew Scott” by Rachel Cooke from The Guardian; “Vanya on Lake Lucille” by Stephanie Fleischmann in American Theatre Magazine
