Theater Review: an intense, immersive Uncle Vanya by a new company

Uncle Vanya

By Anton Chekhov

Directed by Richard Nelson

Hunter Theater Project

Manhattan, NYC

September 26, 2018

Chekhov’s plays create a world of boredom and unfulfilled hopes and dreams. The mystery and wonder of the plays is that we can sit and listen to people complaining for 2-3 hours without leaving the theater. His dialogue is so revealing, and the characters so subtle and parsimonious in revealing their true identities, that one must concentrate steadily in order to truly enter Chekhov’s world. Some modern directors overcompensate for this demand by making the characters too overt and emotive, not repressed enough. The excellent debut production of Uncle Vanya at the new Hunter Theater Project does just the opposite. It doubles down on introversion, making the extremes of the play even more intense, and immerses you in Chekhov’s universe of stasis and disappointment unlike other productions I have seen. This immersion seems to be part of the mission of the new group--to connect artists with a “willing audience”. So, we are not to be pandered to or enticed or coddled. It is assumed we are there for serious concentration and effort. Their first production delivered on this mission.

The play Uncle Vanya is the most concentrated (1.5 hours) of the great last four plays, set entirely inside a couple rooms of a provincial estate. It reminded me a bit of the scheme of Tracy Letts’ August, Osage County, also set in a claustrophobic single home, isolated from the outside world. In each play we are presented with a dysfunctional but stable social setting which is disrupted by the presence of newcomers. Stress and cruelty emerge from otherwise boring people. The newcomers leave, and the old dysfunction settles back into its familiarity. In Uncle Vanya the stable dysfunction is the aging Vanya caring for a dull rural estate, along with his repressed, homely niece Sonya, their granny, and a rules-based housekeeper-nanny. The disruption is the arrival of Sonya’s academic father with his new young wife Elena. They screw up the time-honored routine. A local doctor also drops in, bored with his practice and life in general. The men are all attracted to Elena. No one is attracted to repressed Sonya.  The men are jealous of each other’s careers and women. There is a threat to sell the estate, disrupting the status quo. It blows over, and the newcomers leave. The stable core group reaffirms their commitment to stability and routine. The end.

Of course, Letts’ Oklahomans are far more able to shout and express overt anger and bile than are Chekhov’s upper middle-class Russians. If August is opera, Uncle Vanya is a harpsichord recital. You have to adjust your ears and emotional antennae down to the repressed level of the characters. This was even more the case in this production. We were seated in a small box theater with the audience on all four sides of the small platform stage, at eye level with the actors. The actors often spoke in a murmur, and mumbled as real people often do. There was certainly no flinging about of arms or broad facial gesturing, as condemned by Shakespeare. They all looked like a normal family would, dressed in modern scruffy, casual clothes, seated around uninteresting table, chairs, and food, without backdrop or fancy lighting effects. It was as if director Nelson invited us in to eavesdrop on a real family gathering and stripped away all the usual “magic” of theater. This concept fit really well with Chekhov’s style, described as “the talent for dramatizing what is ordinary”. This production took Chekhov on his own terms. There is a short section of “fireworks” near the end of the play when Vanya’s emotion boils over, but here it seemed jarring and out of place, rather like when someone in a repressed family actually starts shouting and crying, making everyone else terribly uncomfortable. These actors all mastered the art of looking vaguely uncomfortable, and the troupe and director should be credited with a wonderful ensemble effect that tuned into Chekhov’s world with precision. While Jay O. Sander’s Vanya should be singled out for its range and sensitivity to the turmoil of aging, all the actors bought into the director’s concept and delivered. The intimacy of the setting was amplified by the actors at times looking directly into the eyes of first row audience members, talking to us during Chekhov’s short monologues. This effective device reminded me of the potent intimacy of Justin Kuritzkes’ The Sensuality Party by the New Group in 2016, where I was seated in an audience circle like part of a rap session, and the actors talked directly to us, breaking down the boundaries of actor and audience. I will look eagerly for more work by this new theater company who seems to be seeing to reach the core of the playwright’s world.