Uncle Vanya: resigned nihilism and vodka
10 Sep 2022

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Dahlia Katz

We find our seats in the rows ringing all four sides of a sun-bathed dining room/living area. The rustic room has seen better days with cracks on the walls and gaps in the flooring where forest debris has gathered. The set also resembles a boxing or wrestling ring and indeed, we have been seated to watch the characters battle. Despite the high ceilings the end result is claustrophobic. There are entrances at all four corners where characters enter and exit to verbally joust, exchanging insults and accusations as well as protestations of love. Repressed passions seethe, building to outbursts that are just as quickly denied. Two love triangles, philosophical differences and longstanding resentments unravel, fuelled by gallons of vodka, in considerable verbiage, and one very welcome burst of physical action at the top of the second act. All in all a realistic portrait of any chosen family gathering.

Beyond metaphor, the seating allows each audience member to be very close to an intense and remarkable troupe of actors. Every flicker of disdain or delight that moves across the characters' face is visible. One audience member, in the preview performance I saw, was delighted to be hit by an errant hurled slipper aimed at the fireplace beside them. We feel like part of the family. Where we fit in depends on one's emotional identification. The farmhouse is the domain of the imperious dtaborah johnson (previously the incandescent performer Tabby Johnson) who alas we see little of. Very few artists can command a room simply by gliding onstage with a diva's ease. The head of the household is Vanya, the tortured and torturing Tom Rooney (The Wedding Party), but the peacemaker who holds it all together is Sonia, an effervescent and charmingly innocent Bahai Watson (The Archivists, The Virgin Trial).  A droll and sharp-tongued Carolyn Fe is the taciturn housekeeper Marina.. Guests include a hypochondriac professor Alexandre, an irascible and blustery Eric Peterson (Orphans for the Czar, The Father), and his much younger and beautiful wife Yelena, Shannon Taylor (Mother's Daughter) who is sensual nesting dolls encased in a prim, perky and devoted wife.

Also in permanent residence is Telegin who is there for no discernible reason other than he is played by the comic genius Anand Rajaram (As You Like It, Buffoon, Mustard, Stupefcation) and can strum a guitar. Visiting enough that he could considered a resident is Astrov, the village doctor, whose main attributes are his sex appeal and his insistence that "I'm dead inside." Ali Kazmi has the sex appeal aspect down pat but his Astrov is far from dead inside. All of the characters are fully inhabited, living and breathing, the actors believing and creating belief in a back story that is glancingly revealed by the text. It also takes a huge amount of charm and charisma because all of these characters—except for Marina who could be far bitchier and still loveable, and Sonia who just escapes being cloying—are deeply unpleasant. While the actors' are busy creating emotional truth, it is hard to tell whether we are meant to find these characters humorous or horrific. Like the samovar dominating the center of the set, that only dispenses cold tea, none of these characters generate heat despite maximum bluster.

There are a number of profundities and epigrams sprinkled throughout, and one comic bit involving a truth revealed reluctantly but with biting relish, that is repeated and gets a hearty laugh each time. But mostly the characters dither. There is a scene where a character is ostensibly departing but his good-byes are interrupted interminably by further discussions, delays and vodka. Chekhov may be making a point about the mundanity of life, but this production has not resolved whether it is satirical or tragic. Which actually reflects life accurately. The point may very well be that these people are trapped by their own inertia—Astrov has been working on a plan to preserve the scant remaining surrounding forest (metaphor alert!) but he only applies himself when he is bored—and manufacture distractions to avoid real change or deep thought. Distractions and vodka. The final result is a resigned nihilism which is a potent description of the stereotypical way we view the Russian psyche. As Yelena says of autumn roses, "Very beautiful, very tragic."