{"id":101,"date":"2020-02-01T15:19:58","date_gmt":"2020-02-01T15:19:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/heatherneill.co.uk\/blog\/?p=101"},"modified":"2020-02-01T15:19:58","modified_gmt":"2020-02-01T15:19:58","slug":"uncle-vanya-chekhovian-nuance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heatherneill.co.uk\/blog\/2020\/02\/01\/uncle-vanya-chekhovian-nuance\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncle Vanya: Chekhovian nuance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toby Jones has the audience giggling the moment he appears, surging out of a daytime nap, hitherto out of sight, at the back of the stage. This is a brilliant study – funny and heart-breaking – of a desperately depressed middle-aged man who keeps just this side of sanity by turning every disappointment into a bitter, sardonic joke. Until, that is, he is pushed over the edge by unrequited passion for the beautiful, languid – and equally unhappy – Yelena (lazily elegant Rosalind Eleazar) and the selfish financial demands of her academic husband, his brother-in-law. Vanya’s incompetence – he can’t even satisfactorily pop a bubble sound to indicate the professor’s worthlessness – at seduction and attempted murder is both risible and painful to watch, perfectly capturing Chekhov’s nuanced mood.<\/p>\n

\"Uncle<\/a><\/p>\n

Ian Rickson’s production and Conor McPherson’s unfussy adaptation bring out the extent to which all the main characters – the doctor Astrov, Vanya, Sonya his niece, touchingly played by Aimee Lou Wood, and even Yelena – sadly underestimate their potential while nevertheless being disastrously self-absorbed. A couple of them address the audience directly: somewhere out there someone might understand. Only the professor (Ciar\u00e1n Hinds, rightly unlovable) overestimates his ability while lacking any human empathy or self-knowledge.<\/p>\n

\"Toby<\/a>Toby Jones and Rosalind Eleazar as Vanya and the mesmerising Yelena \u00a9Johan Persson<\/p>\n

The acting of the whole ensemble beautifully suggests a group of people imprisoned together in the countryside, sometimes loving but generally failing to understand each other. Relationships are delineated with forensic care in many tiny details – Sonya surreptitiously sniffing the socks of Astrov whom she adores, for instance.<\/p>\n

Astrov, a doctor like Chekhov, has a love of nature, of forests and wild places akin to Chekhov’s own. Richard Armitage gives him a faded glamour, desperate, alcohol-driven playfulness and a sadness born of frustration at the limitations of his achievement. His forbidden love for Yelena is heart-breaking, yet another failure.<\/p>\n

Rae Smith’s set is atmospheric while avoiding clich\u00e9; there isn’t a samovar to be seen.<\/p>\n

Uncle Vanya<\/em> is at the Harold Pinter Theatre until May 2nd<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toby Jones has the audience giggling the moment he appears, surging out of a daytime nap, hitherto out of sight, at the back of the stage. This is a brilliant study – funny and heart-breaking – of a desperately depressed middle-aged man who keeps just this side of sanity by turning every disappointment into a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[32,36,35,7,34,31,33],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/heatherneill.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/heatherneill.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/heatherneill.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heatherneill.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heatherneill.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/heatherneill.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106,"href":"https:\/\/heatherneill.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions\/106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/heatherneill.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heatherneill.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heatherneill.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}