Word: vanya
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THERE IS A fundamental miscalculation in the new production of Uncle Vanya--the distance it puts us from the actors. Derek McLane's attractive set consists of a tall house frame, cocked at a slight angle upstage, and, to its right, a large patch of wheat and two swings that seem to reach forever up to the proscenium arch. The action after the first act is confined mainly to the house, which is towering but not very roomy, divided as it is into different levels. The actors, then, are both distant and dwarfed, surrounded by space and yet cramped...
...Uncle Vanya cries out for intimacy. There are, as always, intense forces at work beneath Chekhov's relatively placid surface, but here they are not as sweeping as in his other plays: no armies come and go, no property is sold, no affairs are consummated, no duels fought, no suicides committed--indeed, it is Vanya's pathetic and half-hearted attempt at melodramatic action that points up the universal failure to act at the heart of the play. These are Chekhov's weariest and most resigned characters, and they are dying before our eyes. Watching them it is easy...
...exacerbated. But the approach seems conscious, particularly when Cornuelle places an actor behind a pole during a key confrontation, or has Marina, the old nurse, speak throughout in Russian. These kind of alienation effects often shed surprising light on classic plays, but I question their use in Uncle Vanya. I believe the director misunderstands the strengths of this harrowing play, and the effects of this may be felt in every scene, in every performance...
...Brazil, and he hasn't had a movie role this large since Sleuth in 1972. If for no other reason, you should see this film, to see him biting Gregory Peck, hissing at Uta Hagen, or grimacing at Rosemary Harris' attempt to seduce him. (Remember the film of Uncle Vanya, where he lusted after...
...simmering minihell of incessantly frustrated emotions in a barren provincial outpost of non-civilization, this particular cast stirs up only a tempest in a samovar. Vanya should be compacted of anguish; Hutt is merely consumed by pique. When he shoots at Serebriakov and misses him twice, one hears only the toy pistol retort of a toyed-with emotion...