Back Stage West - October 14, 1999

"UNCLE VANYA"
Polly Warfield

In Uncle Vanya Chekhov wrote a perfect play, and it is here given as nearly perfect a production as possible in an imperfect world. The play has aged like a wine of fine vintage; its aroma, an intense bouquet, is a complex blend of oak, spice, and berries tinged with bitter myrrh. To celebrate its 100th birthday, it is served by co-directors Michael Langham and Helen Burns at the right temperature at the right time in the right setting. The Geffen is a theatre of suitable size and ambience in which to savor the intimacy and humanity of this unassuming masterpiece. And Langham and Burns, man and wife, have the sensitivity, skill, and experience to appreciate and express every aspect of the yang and yin in it.

Vanya made its debut at the Moscow Art Theatre almost exactly a hundred years ago, in October of 1899; its prescience and freshness are amazing a century later. Its Dr. Astrov, a passionate environmentalist, is an eloquent precursor of today's Green Party. While the play is named for long-suffering, self-sacrificing, ineffectual Uncle Vanya (Chekhov calls him a whiner), and the role is beautifully realized by Robert Foxworth, Vanya's true hero is country doctor Astrov who, despite his exhausting, selfless service to his community, earns Chekhov's approbation as "a whistler." Tired though he may be, Astrov, as played by Stephen Pelinski, is a jaunty, attractive, and sexy charmer. And despite his fondness for vodka, he remains clear-eyed and level-headed. Chekhov himself, an overworked country doctor for a time, put such an alter-ego in each of his plays.

These are ruefully recognizable characters; we have met them before in slightly different guises in other Chekhov plays. We may also recognize ourselves in them. Whatever situation they're in, they're stuck in it. Vanya grumbles, with reason, that he is overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated as caretaker of the country estate that should be his but has gone, unjustly, to his dead sister's husband, the professor and critic Serebryakov-supremely selfish, solipsistic, a poseur and popinjay, given the right edge in Peter Donat's performance.

Serebryakov's beautiful young second wife Yelena is desired by other men (which, we suspect, gives the old man a certain sly satisfaction), and we can see why: As Yelena, Christina Haag languishes lazily about, taking care always to be carefully groomed and becomingly dressed. Elusive, remote, tantalizingly beyond reach, she is nevertheless stirred by Astrov's potent masculinity and good looks, and he, like bumbling Vanya, is powerfully attracted to her. But whereas in other productions the brief but incandescent scenes between Astrov and Yelena verge on bursting into flame, here Astrov remains almost cynically in control, refusing to be swept away.

Meanwhile, dear, good Sonya, Serebryakov's neglected daughter by his first wife (sweetly, expressivly played by Megan Follows), is excruciatingly, hopelessly in love with Astrov. Convinced she is "plain," she has convinced everyone else of it, too, but as compensation she is almost angelically virtuous. Minor but lovable characters as Chekhov's underlings usually are, Gloria Dorson makes a devout, sweet-faced, plain-spoken old nanny Marina. Fred Applegate is moving as the impoverished and pockmarked neighbor insensitively nicknamed Pockles. The excellent Anne Gee Byrd as Vanya's sour, scowling mother Marya dotes on her widowed son-in-law and wastes no affection on her son Vanya. (Chekhov, we've noticed, is not big on mother love.) Michael Rothhaar, pillar of Pacific Resident Theatre, does double duty as workman and watchman.

Scenery and lighting by Neil Peter Jampolis, with indoor/outdoor vistas of rustic Russia, are gorgeous and evocative. Robert Blackman's costumes are perfectly in accord. Chekhov, famously given to sound effects, allows Jon Gottlieb ample opportunity to exercise his well-known expertise effectively with birds, crickets, thunder, rain, horses' hooves, music box melodies, barking dogs.

Of Uncle Vanyas I have seen, including a daringly imaginative staging by the bygone Actors Conservatory Ensemble (ACE at the Lex), and even an extraordinarily powerful Lithuanian company's rendition some years ago at an American Theatre Critics' convention in Houston, this ranks with the best. Vanessa Burnham, credited as adapter, agrees with Chekhov: His plays are comedies. There is much cause for laughter. This is a contemporary, colloquial, accessible Uncle Vanya that bridges the century gloriously.

Source: Backstage West