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Uncle Vanya

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Uncle Vanya
Konstantin Stanislavski as Astrov
in the Moscow Art Theatre production in 1899.
Written byAnton Chekhov
Original languageRussian
SettingGarden of the Serebryakov family estate

Uncle Vanya (Russian: Дядя Ваня – Dyadya Vanya) is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897 and received its Moscow première in 1899 in a production by the Moscow Art Theatre, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski.

Background

'Uncle Dong

Characters

  • Aleksandr Vladimirovich Serebryakov (Александр Владимирович Серебряков) - a retired university professor.
  • Elena Andreyevna Serebryakov (Елена Андреевна Серебрякова) - Professor Serebryakov's young and beautiful second wife. She is 27 years old.
  • Sofia Alexandrovna Serebryakov (Sonya) (Софья Александровна Серебрякова) - Professor Serebryakov's plain daughter from his first marriage.
  • Maria Vasilyevna Voynitsky (Мария Васильевна Войницкая) - the widow of a privy councilor and mother of Vanya.
  • Ivan Petrovitch Voynitsky ("Uncle Vanya") (Иван Петрович Войницкий)- Maria's son and Sonya's uncle, the title character of the play.
  • Mikhail Lvovich Astrov (Михаил Львович Астров) - a well-versed country doctor.
  • Ilya Ilych Telegin ("Waffles") (Илья Ильич Телегин) - an impoverished landowner.
  • Marina Timofeevna (Марина Тимофеевна) - an old nurse.
  • A Workman

Plot synopsis

Act I

A garden in the family estate of Serebryakov. Astrov and Marina discuss how old Astrov has grown, and how he feels bored with his life as a country doctor. Vanya enters, yawning from a nap, the three complain about how all order has been disrupted since the professor and his wife, Elena, arrived. As they’re talking, Serebryakov, Elena, Sonya, and Telegin return from a walk. Vanya calls the professor “a learned old dried mackerel,” criticizing him for his pomposity and the smallness of his achievements. Vanya’s mother, Maria Vasilyevna, who idolizes Serebryakov, objects to her son’s derogatory comments. Vanya also praises the professor’s wife, Elena, for her beauty, arguing that faithfulness to an old man like Serebryakov means silencing youth and emotions — an immoral waste of vitality. Astrov is forced to depart to attend a patient, but not before delivering a speech on the preservation of trees, a subject he is very passionate about. Act I closes with Elena becoming exasperated as Vanya declares his love for her.

Act II

Serebryakov’s dining room, several days later. It is late at night. Before going to bed, Serebryakov complains of being in pain and of old age. Astrov arrives, having been sent for by Sonya, but the professor refuses to see him. After Serebryakov is asleep, Elena and Vanya talk. She speaks of the discord in the house, and Vanya speaks of dashed hopes. He feels he’s misspent his youth, and he associates his unrequited love for Elena with the devastation of his life. Elena refuses to listen. Alone, Vanya questions why he did not fall in love with Elena when he first met her ten years before, when it would have been possible for the two to have married and had a happy life together. At that time, Vanya believed in Serebryakov’s greatness and loved him; now those beliefs are gone and his life feels empty. As Vanya agonizes over his past, Astrov returns, the worse for drink, and the two talk together. Sonya chides Vanya for his drinking, and responds pragmatically to his reflections on the futility of a wasted life, pointing out that only work is truly fulfilling.

Outside, a storm is gathering and Astrov talks with Sonya about the suffocating atmosphere in the house; Astrov says Serebryakov is difficult, Vanya is a hypochondriac, and Elena is charming but idle. He laments that it’s a long time since he loved anyone. Sonya begs Astrov to stop drinking, telling him he is beautiful and should create rather than simply destroy himself. The two discuss love, during which it becomes clear that Sonya is in love with the Doctor and that he is unaware of her feelings.

When the doctor leaves, Elena enters and makes peace with Sonya, after an apparently long period of mutual anger and antagonism. Trying to resolve their past difficulties, Elena reassures Sonya that she had strong feelings for her father when she married him, though the love proved false. The two women converse at cross purposes, with Elena confessing her unhappiness and Sonya gushing about the doctor’s virtues. In a happy mood, Sonya leaves to ask the professor if Elena may play the piano. Sonya returns with his negative answer, which quickly dampens the mood. It's a little piece of home.

Act III

Vanya, Sonya, and Elena are in the living room of Serebryakov’s house, having been called there by Serebryakov. Vanya calls Elena a water nymph and urges her, once again, to break free. Sonya complains to Elena that she has loved Astrov for six years and that because she is not beautiful, he doesn’t notice her. Elena volunteers to question Astrov and find out if he’s in love with Sonya. Sonya is pleased, but before agreeing she wonders whether uncertainty is better because then, at least, there is hope.

When Elena asks Astrov about his feelings for Sonya, he says he has none and concludes that Elena has brought up the subject of love to encourage him to confess his own emotions for her. Astrov kisses Elena, and Vanya witnesses the embrace. Upset, Elena begs Vanya to use his influence so that she and the professor can leave immediately. Before Serebryakov can make his announcement, Elena conveys to Sonya the message that Astrov doesn’t love her.

Serebryakov proposes that he solve the family’s financial problems by selling the estate, using the proceeds to invest in interest-bearing paper and buy a villa for himself and Elena in Finland. Angrily, Vanya asks where he, Sonya, and his mother would live. He protests that the estate belongs to Sonya and that Vanya has never been appreciated for the self-sacrifice it took to rid the property of debt. As Vanya’s anger mounts, he begins to rave against the professor, blaming him for the failure of his life, wildly claiming that without Serebryakov to stop him, he could have been a second Schopenhauer or Dostoevsky. In despair, he cries out to his mother, but instead of comforting her son, Maria insists that Vanya listen to the professor. Serebryakov insults Vanya, who storms out of the room. Elena begs to be taken away from the country and Sonya pleads with her father on Vanya's behalf. Serebryakov exits to confront Vanya further. A shot is heard from offstage and Serebryakov returns, being chased by Vanya, who is wielding a loaded pistol. He fires the pistol again, point blank at the professor, but misses. He throws it down in disgust and sinks into a chair.

Act IV

As the final act opens, a few hours later, Marina and Telegin wind wool and discuss the planned departure of Serebryakov and Elena. When Vanya and Astrov enter, Astrov says that in this district only he and Vanya were “decent, cultured men” and that ten years of “narrow-minded life” have made them vulgar. Vanya has stolen a vial of Astrov’s morphine, presumably to commit suicide; Sonya and Astrov beg him to return the narcotic, which he eventually does.

Elena and Serebryakov bid everyone farewell. When Elena says goodbye to Astrov, she admits to having been carried away by him, embraces him, and takes one of his pencils as a souvenir. Serebryakov and Vanya make their peace, agreeing all will be as it was before. Once the outsiders have departed, Sonya and Vanya pay bills, Maria reads a pamphlet, and Marina knits. Vanya complains of the heaviness of his heart, and Sonya speaks of living, working, and the rewards of the afterlife: “We shall hear the angels, we shall see the whole sky all diamonds, we shall see how all earthly evil, all our sufferings, are drowned in the mercy that will fill the whole world. And our life will grow peaceful, tender, sweet as a caress. . . . In your life you haven’t known what joy was; but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait. . . . We shall rest.”

Themes

Uncle Vanya is thematically preoccupied with what might sentimentally be called the wasted life, and a survey of the characters and their respective miseries will make this clear. Admittedly, however, it remains somewhat difficult to organize these concepts into a coherent theme as they belong more to the play's "nastroenie," its melancholic mood or atmosphere, than to a distinct program of ideas.

Productions

Scene from Act I, Moscow Art Theatre, 1899.

Although the play had previous small runs in provincial theatres in 1898, its metropolitan première took place on 7 November [O.S. 26 October] 1899 at the Moscow Art Theatre. Konstantin Stanislavski played the role of Astrov while Chekhov's future wife Olga Knipper played Elena. The initial reviews were favourable yet pointed to defects in both the play and the acting. As the staging and the acting improved over successive performances, however, and as "the public understood better its inner meaning and nuances of feeling," the reviews improved.[1] Uncle Vanya became a permanent fixture in the Moscow Art Theatre.

Other actors who have appeared in notable stage productions of Uncle Vanya include Franchot Tone, Cate Blanchett, Anthony Sher, Ian McKellen, William Hurt, George C. Scott, Derek Jacobi and Trevor Eve.

The Reduced Shakespeare Company performed a shortened version of the play on their BBC radio show, which contained only three lines:
Are you Uncle Vanya?
I am.
[Gunshot sounds]
Ouch!

Film and opera adaptations

Over the years, Uncle Vanya has been adapted for film several times.

  • Country Life, an Australian adaptation, stars Sam Neill as the equivalent of Astrov
  • Sir Anthony Hopkins directed and starred in August, an English film adaptation.
  • Additionally, the film Cold Souls revolves around Paul Giamatti, portraying a loose version of himself, struggling with the lead role in a stage production of Vanya.
  • Sonya's Story, an opera adapted by director Sally Burgess, composer Neal Thornton and designer Charles Phu, portraying events in the play Uncle Vanya from the character Sonya's perspective.

Awards and nominations

Awards
  • 2003 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Revival
Nominations
  • 1992 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Revival
  • 2000 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Revival of a Play

References

  1. ^ Simmons, Ernest (1962). Chekhov, A Biography. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. p. 486.

Further reading

Wikisource has original text related to this article:


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