UNCLE VANYA. Tour to 1 June.
Scotland
UNCLE VANYA
by Anton Chekhov, new version by Tom Leonard
Theatre Babel on tour
Runs 2hr 20min One interval
Review Timothy Ramsden 11 May 2002 at Theatre Royal, York.
Fresh, swift, comic and deeply-felt; a Vanya from the top-drawer.Graham McLaren's sharp-focused production replaces melancholy with mockery. Even the dependant neighbour Waffles – an active piano-accordion rather than ruminative guitar player – is forceful, his story of his wife's immediate desertion after their marriage not the usual joke, but a serious moral example (she came to ill; he's getting along nicely).
Comedy often cuts in purposefully. As the usually self-deprecating Astrov enters on a lyrical flight about what he'd do at moments of emotional intensity, the servant Marina hands him a vodka with the word 'Drink'.
Brian Pettifer's shabby, shambling Vanya, first seen sleeping in an armchair, soon rises to a fury against his visiting brother-in-law (Serebryakov and his second, young wife are marked out by their non-Scots voices). It's both personal and a hope of the future gone sour – Serebryakov's an academic whose work crumbles to zero. It's vitriolic too, leading organically to Vanya's third-act gun and roses scenes.
The three pathetic flowers he brings Helena – only to find her mid-clinch with Astrov – lie redundant till one's eventually given to old Marina. And Pettifer's scornful denunciations lead naturally to the attempted shooting, the action of someone spurred to the edge by his own inactivity.
The production's full of itchy near-intimacy (a virus could wing its way round the cast in an evening, there's so much near contact). John Kazek's debonair doctor is an object of desire for Clara Onyemere's beautiful young wife hitched to an old Prof. While Astrov leans over, showing her his ecological maps, she's more interested in his buttocks than the local paddocks.
It's all to no effect. Helena and her husband row viciously - the action's tactfully shoved forward through enough of the 20th century to brush away her reserve without landing her in a liberated world. But when she finally tries open-mouthed passion on Astrov, he doesn't respond. All the desire she's aroused gives her nothing. Instead, it's the initially child-voiced Sonya who discovers depths in herself when ticking off Vanya's despair, saying she will survive.
So, by the way, must this company (whose funding, incredibly has been threatened). This is vital, thoughtful, detailed yet emotionally direct theatre – the work of a company that knows where it's going and should be encouraged on its course.
Vanya: Brian Pettifer
Astrov: John Kazek
Serebryakov: Peter D'Souza
Sonya: Isabelle Joss
Helena: Clara Onyemere
Marina: Pamela Kelly
Maria: Nan Kerr
Waffles: Bill Murdoch
Director/Designer: Graham McLaren
Lighting: Kai Fischer
Tour:
Royal Lyceum Edinburgh 22-25 May 0131 248 4848
Citizens' Theatre Glasgow 28 May-1 June 0141 429 0022
2002-05-12 09:56:23