Back in 1994, while in the middle of several intense writing projects, I took ten days in London as a needed sanity break. In turn, I ended up at the at the Royal National Theatre sharing eye level with the cast, one which included Judi Dench and Bill Nighy rolling around at one point in lusty if awkward embrace. The play was Chekhov’s The Seagull.
Nighy was Trigorin the writer, and each time he described, in that pinched sort of whine that Nighy can conjure at will, Trigorin’s perplexed state of mind during a befuddled process of creativity, I laughed loudly from the belly. Trigorin was describing familiar turf I had, that very evening, gone to theatre to escape. Later, when the cast took their bows, I stood in front of Nighy, gave him “two thumbs up, and he winked at me in response.
More locally and more recently, Crow’s Theatre does an unforgettable Uncle Vanya at Theatre Aquarius until January 27, after which it transfers to Toronto’s CAA Theatre from February 2-25. This production achieves much of what fine work in theatre can offer, and let me count but a few of the reasons I urge you to go see it.
To begin, director Chris Abraham and his cast achieve a world into which each inner life of an audience can segue, willing or not, with ease. We recognize these characters as much as we are willing, in our own self-deceptions, in our own existential torments, to acknowledge ourselves. These Chekhovian characters live individual lives and we in the audience live distinct lives, and over and over a life on stage overlaps with the watcher’s life.
Now try acting Chekhov as a Taoist, as many in this cast seem able to do as they “work without doing.” Chekhov the playwright suffers as a genuine explorer into humanity whenever his acted characters become self-consciously realized and remote from us. However, one beauty of Abraham’s production is how we can’t compactly describe any character, we can’t point at them and judge them. They are what they are, and so we are what we are, all of us bound to be here – and who knows what to say about it?
One joy of a humanly honest production of Chekhov is not to feel acted at, and such is true in this case. We feel we are living with these people and that gradually we need to pull back, emotionally drained as we are. We gradually feel more and more weighed down but rarely, oddly, do we isolate the actors’ art already so well-honed and then subtly guided into being the reality we here experience. Judi Dench once explained for me how, on the other hand, Laurence Olivier was quite conscious of the effects he was having on his audience. This Vanya cast, however, keeps it all unaffected and real.
I always cringe when I read that a play I’m going to see is “adapted” since, too often, such designation merely seems to mean playing selections of popular music to help a contemporary audience understand how a given play is ‘relevant.’ Liisa Repo-Martell’s adaptation, happily, feels genuinely present and humanly authentic through the words spoken by these characters. My mother’s mother was Ukrainian, her father Polish, and as a kid I heard many relatives in conversation, and it was quite natural to imagine these characters presented by Repo-Martell as both Slavic and English-speaking.
The “lived-in” set of this Uncle Vanya, created by Julie Fox and Joshua Quinlan does convey daily human presence. It’s a space where various humans make their physical and emotional way and make an atmospheric mark on their surroundings. Kimberly Purtell’s lighting accentuates and seems to echo many inner lives. We as watchers feel compelled to inhabit this space, to interact with it, and like Chekhov’s characters be made, body and emotion, by it.
It’s a sign of an emotionally rich production, like this Uncle Vanya, that the play’s characters continue to unfold when one has returned to mundane concerns. One has gained new insights, unlidded some emotions, and also been set to rethinking individuals one knows or has known. A line that separates Chekhov’s characters and the people who inhabit one’s life becomes less precise, even non-existent. It also can be unsettling the way a Chekhovian character seems to inhabit one’s mirror, as one shaves perhaps, and says, “We are one and the same.”
Yes, I do connect with these characters. For one, I feel I run into Marina from time to time, maybe buying groceries, and again appreciate the unaffected earthiness that Carolyn Fe brings to the part. I have worked with and been impressed in past years by a person like the subtly realized Astrov, played by Ali Kazmi, and found that, for all his dedication, ideals, and passions, he is still unreachably alone, and can’t do anything about it. Or Shannon Taylor’s inwardly wandering Yelena, gently underplayed, who never has the goods for – if indeed she wants it – human connection.
I once had a publisher much like Eric Peterson’s dynamically-realized Alexandre, a man of public stature in his field, big-mouthed, and, as we are reminded by Vanya, superficial and shallow. Each character we here meet, however, is, in truth, as much an unknown as a person of identifiable qualities. The emotionally charged and emotionally suppressed Sonya of Liisa Reo-Martell is one. Her declaration that ends the play is so ripe with longing and hopelessness that, on listening, one’s heart quietly breaks. But who is she?
Tom Rooney’s Uncle Vanya, in his frustrations, social clumsiness, and implicit sense of pointlessness, does seem a quiet and nuanced summary of Chekhov’s work. In this dead-end and long burned-out existence of his, Vanya carries on because, in most cases, that’s what one does with one’s life.
One does laugh too, out loud or simply with one’s eyes, although humour is not present in all Chekhov productions because too many non-Slavs would probably not understand it, not get it even as they live it. Once in the factory where I worked one summer, a Ukrainian welder came over to ask, “How come a chicken drinks water and doesn’t pee?” See what I mean?
So, do see Chris Abraham’s production, and think about what’s going on. We live in perilous times when murder is often unquestioned, often even declared as justified. These characters are real people in front of you. Are they, with all their flaws, worth saving?