Barrington Stage Co.

Review of Uncle Vanya at Barrington Stage Company, Pittsfield

By Dave ⋅ August 14, 2007 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

August 12, 2007 performance reviewed by Frances Benn Hall.

How to produce Chekhov’s plays has been controversial ever since, a hundred years ago Stanislavsky at the Moscow Arts Theatre declared them to be tragedies and Chekhov objected to taking them too seriously and insisted they were comedies.

The basic problem, of course, is that they are both, a “sport” in dramatic composition that can include even farce as well as compassion, forlorn hope, and often at the end, tears. Productions can lean to one side or the other; either way you can win some scenes and have to give a bit on others. And both ways can be “Chekovian” and delightful.

Julianne Boyd’s “Uncle Vanya” at Barrington Stage Company is a fast- paced, elegantly mounted, Russian-oriented, insightfully directed and interestingly cast production.

The translation and casting keep the audience delighted with the very real humor this play can evoke, even though the angst is still there. This production is another winner for the Barrington Stage Company and should lead audience members to wanting more Chekhov.

Chekhov plays have no real plot line. They are composed of scenes, people come and at the ending some leave, with others left behind and few pieces to pick up. Life goes on. In Russia a hundred years ago, life for most was not, in Chekhov’s view, happy—but it was not tragic either. He could only hope. If he were writing today, he would probably find our world also in need of hope.

In “Uncle Vanya” what plot there is centers around Vanya and his niece Sonya who have slaved for years on the estate to support her father and his second wife Yelena. When the pair arrive in person Vanya, especially, is disillusioned by the arrogant, mediocre professor for whom he has worked so tirelessly, and smitten by the beautiful young wife whom he feels the Professor does not deserve.

Sonya meanwhile becomes enamored with the local doctor who spends much time at the estate, called in by the numerous medical complaints of the Professor. Yelena is beautiful, indolent and bored. Vanya is pushed beyond endurance when the Professor announces he wants to sell the house which belongs not to him but to Sonya.

When Vanya reaches the breaking point, he explodes and the play explodes into farce. Eventually, as in all Chekhov plays, characters depart in the end usually to a dying fall of mood, an unfulfilled hoping for others if not for the characters themselves.

In this production, my only problem was with that Sonya ending, so poignant, but not given enough time to resonate beyond the laughter (that erupted even on the repeated lines “He’s gone” voiced after the Professor’s departure.)

The ending is serious if not tragic and didn’t quite get to be, at least not for this reviewer.

As for the rest of the play, it is strongly directed and skillfully played.

Vanya (Jack Gilpin) is vociferous and vehement. He tends to set the tone for laughter in the performance, thus making his farce when he utterly loses control possible. And despite his mainly manic behavior, he has an extremely brief touching scene with Sonya in which he remembers his sister, her mother. And he is resigned in the end when Sonya almost mothers him. As played he is the lead in this performance.

His lead is challenged however by a more serious minded character the doctor Astrov, who has a long monolog on his one-man dream of saving the environment that he sees slowly eroding in his own lifetime. Astrov can steal the show, and when Olivier played him in London in 1947 he very possibly did. In this production Mark L. Montgomery almost does at times. It is a winning and masterful performance.

Yelena (Heidi Armbruster) is as beautiful and indolent as the others believe her to be. She is also more in her gentle awareness of Sonya’s love for the doctor and her almost willingness to further it. And she is really fine in her decision to leave taking the Professor with her and out of all the troubled lives their visit has troubled further.

Sonya (Keira Naughton) acted her almost-spinster role convincingly, but was the only character in the play that I would change. Her wig and glasses put me off, wanting a younger, more vulnerable Sonya than the stoic one presented. As conceived by her and her director, the character is perfectly valid, well acted, but for me, not Sonya and not thus given the chance to end the play on a plaintive note as Robert Grossman, guitarist extraordinaire, played softly.

Grossman is also touchingly effective as knowing his own place in his small role as Telegin, hanger-on at the estate. Kenneth Tigar as the Professor is someone we willingly are glad to hate. Marina, family retainer, (Patricia Conolly) is enchanting when at the play’s beginning she, without speaking, touches the tea pot to test its waning warmth. Alaina Warren Zachary in her small role as a woman dedicated to believing in the worth of the worthless Professor is well cast also.

Although I have never seen a Chekhov performance as hilarious and fast paced as this one, I enjoyed it immensely, The setting, lighting, costumes – everything worked for me, except my wanting Sonya somehow more significant, wanting her to have a really big moment at the end, full of resignation but hoping, as Chekhov characters do, for a better world for those to come.

But nobody in the audience seemed to mind and unless you stand with Stanislavsky insisting on tragedy with a capital T, you won’t either.

Barrington Stage Company is obviously a great addition to Pittsfield and everybody can be glad Julianne Boyd moved up here.

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