Word: vanya
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...UNCLE VANYA...
Chekhov had a matchless co-author -the audience. That is what makes him actor-proof. Any of his plays may be somewhat miscast, or slightly askew in performance, as this Stratford production of Uncle Vanya is, yet the audience customarily leaves the theater in a state of emotional agitation, if only by what it has itself contributed...
...plays, only this haunting "if only" of decisions not made, options not taken. Chekhov speaks about people whose lives are past retrieving. He conveys a pressing sense Of loss-lost dreams, lost opportunities, lost hopes, lost loves, lost lives. At one point, a character says to Uncle Vanya: "You've been drinking all day. Why?" And he answers: "It helps me forget that I'm not alive...
...other master stroke by which Chekhov gets the audience to be his collaborator lies in his intuitive understanding that the only undying love is unrequited love. In Uncle Vanya, Vanya (William Hutt) is desperately smitten with Elena (Martha Henry), wife of the crabbed Professor Serebriakov (Max Helpmann), who is many years her senior. Not out of any binding moral scruples, Elena treats Vanya's advances with lacerating indifference. Sonya (Marti Maraden), Vanya's niece, has adored Dr. Astrov (Brian Bedford) for six years, and he has never been aware of it for six seconds. Astrov in turn lusts...
...everyone else). The same rules apply for first names. Many cultures have developed wonder fully elaborate forms of address to delineate relationships, to mark their progress. Russians, for example, can open successive doors of intimacy through a marvelously tender procession of diminutives: Ivan Ivanovich, Ivan Ivan'ich, Ivan, Vanya, Vanyushka, Vanyushenka...