Synopsis Set on a crumbling country estate, Uncle Vanya is the tale of two obsessive love affairs that lead nowhere, and a flirtation that brings disaster. The irascible Vanya and his niece Sonya have managed the estate on behalf of their relative, a renowned Professor for the last twenty-five years. Now retired, the Professor and his beautiful young wife come to visit, throwing the household into disarray, igniting hidden passions and old grudges. Family ties are tested further when the ageing and gout-ridden Professor announces his plans to sell the estate and live off the proceeds in the city. By turns comic, tragic, romantic, and wistful, Chekhov's play is an unforgettable study of unfulfilled dreams and unrequited love. One of his four great masterpieces written on the eve of the twentieth century, it features a feast of subtle comic portraits of a family at logger heads with each other and the world around them, that still has resonance at the start of another new century.
The best news about the Rose in Kingston is that it really does work as a welcoming and agreeable theatre. You could not say that Peter Hall’s production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya - in Stephen Mulrine’s 1999 translation for English Touring Theatre, which inaugurates the new theatre before embarking on a nationwide tour - will go down as one of the greatest in history; but it is a serviceable, unfussy account, fleetly played.
The simplicity of the Rose means that the play must stand on its own two feet. There is nowhere to store or fly scenery. The house is arranged on three levels hugging the wide, epic stage, which is now cunningly tilted in a rake, with “groundlings” seated on cushions on the floor.
Designer Alison Chitty, who has finished the theatre in discreet blue and white to complement the new wood everywhere, places a single glowing tree centre stage and gives the actors a battery of chairs to sit and loll on, and move gingerly between. Three cheers for those chairs, which must number almost as many as you sometimes find in a Trevor Nunn production.
The acting is as discreet as the furnishing. Ronald Pickup is a modestly inflected Serebryakov, not at all the vainglorious academic grandee, while Michelle Dockery’s Yelena, his new young wife, is more sweet than soignée. The central tragedy of Vanya being stranded on the rocks of his own existence, his sense of having been taken advantage of, does not really figure with Nicholas Le Prevost. He is dry, wry and full of a certain residual bitterness, but the great welling in his heart is always under control.
His friend and rival, the visionary doctor Astrov, is played with a modicum of panache by Neil Pearson, but again, you never feel he’s breaking Sonya’s heart with his diffidence. Sonya herself is played by Loo Brealey as a contented doormat. The final heart-breaking moments, as Sonya comforts Vanya over his books and promises some joy and rest in the next world, form merely a comforting coda to disappointment.
The show does have the clear, simple line of the best of Stephen Unwin’s ETT productions, and it will be interesting to see how Unwin, once he gets going as Hall’s successor as artistic director at the Rose, brings that trademark clarity to bear on the new space.
In the meantime, this Vanya is more of an advertisement of good intentions than a mission statement. Good, though, to see such estimable veterans as Faith Brook and Antonia Pemberton showing up well as, respectively, the professor’s widowed mother-in-law and the old nurse.
- Michael Coveney (reviewed at the Rose Theatre, Kingston)
rds is ridiculously unkind. A stunning space , brilliant sight lines and a production which, while not going to set the world alight, was clear and thoughtful made for an exceptional outing. All the word of mouth is positive. But the challenge is tremendous now that Hall's name is no longer attached to the project. Let us keep our fingers crossed. - dcc
08 Feb 08
Well I don't really want to be the party pooper, but I have to say, I was so disappointed with this new theatre. It is clearly a compromise. A theatre, but actually more a venue. It will undoubtedly stage more "shows", bands etc, on its big wide and open stage than it will theatre. Dear ol' Uncle Vanya seemed lost on it, and I was in the centre of row AA. Now don't be fooled by this numbering there is a chasm between row AA and the stage. I was sitting, five rows back from an area designated as the pit, where younger types could sit on cushions and be uncomfortable between me and the stage. It was like sitting in an aircraft hanger. Not only was that bad enough but the five or so rows where I sat on the pit floor are not raked so we had all the disadvantages of an old West End theatre in what is meant to be a state of the art building - WHY FOR CHRIST SAKE!? The acoustics were reasonable but the reverberations from the stage made by the actors as they walked back and forth across it eventually began to irritate. I defy anyone to say they could get into a play in this venue. It destroys any contact between audience and actor. If you want my opinion of the performances, well it was too hard to gage them, save it to say Nicholas Le Provost, whom I usually relish seeing, did the usual bluster and not much else which is more the pity. I think I have said enough! In terms of the venue it is a great opportunity sadly missed. Structural changes are needed. Get rid of the pit and make it a thrust stage instead, and NOW! - rds
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