Last night I attended a production of Uncle Vanya performed by the Richmond Shakespeare Society, at the Mary Walace theatre in Twickenham. The Richmond Shakespeare Society introduces Chekhov’s play in the following manner,
“I always used to think cranks were ill or abnormal, until I realised that to be a crank was man’s normal condition”
Uncle Vanya is arguably the first great modernist drama, full of ambiguities and contradictions, delicately balancing the tragic and the absurd, the farcical
and the hauntingly poetic. Maxim Gorky wrote that “its ideas are huge, symbolic and its form original, incomparable”. Certainly its themes, particularly
the passing of time and the process of ageing, are universal. Trapped in the claustrophobic depths of rural Russia, Chekhov’s assortment of all-too-human
characters drive each other mad, as the arrival of two outsiders forces the incumbents to re-examine the choices they have made. Old wounds are reopened,
passions awakened, thwarted ambitions bubble to the surface and lives are turned upside down. Our adaptation is by Oscar-winning playwright Christopher
Hampton, who has said, “Uncle Vanya doesn’t have a suicide, like The Seagull, or an adulterous couple and a duel like Three Sisters. All it has is a series
of ludicrously bungled attempts at murder and suicide and adultery. Perhaps these failures are what makes it feel the saddest and most truthful” of Chekhov’s
great tragi-comic masterpieces”. (http://www.richmondshakespeare.org.uk/).
The production left me feeling a deep sense of sadness at the futility of the characters lives which is, no doubt precisely what Chekhov intended. Uncle Vanya who is, in essence a kindly man has become cynical and depressed due to his long residence on a provincial country estate in 19th century Russia. Vanya’s love for the professor’s young wife is not reciprocated and Vanya cuts a half comic, half pathetic figure in his fruitless pursuit of her.
The Professor spends much of the day in bed malingering and much of the rest working on books about art which, as Vanya notes no one will read. His young wife flutters like a trapped bird wishing to escape her cage but, as with the Professor’s daughter fears to break away and, ultimately remains imprisoned. The Professor’s daughter is infatuated and, possibly in love with the provincial doctor but her feelings are not returned, the Doctor being attracted to the Professor’s beautiful young wife who, as noted earlier can not break out of her cage.
In Uncle Vanya one witnesses the death of idealism. The Doctor speaks passionately about planting forests which in centuries to come will give joy to the people, however his love (perhaps better described as lust) for the Professor’s wife causes him to abandon his forestry projects leaving the young trees to be damaged by the animals of the peasantry.
Matters come to a head when the Professor tries to persuade Vanya who has been managing the estate on his behalf to sell it. Vanya makes an unsuccessful attempt to shoot the Professor who leaves with his wife followed, shortly after by the Doctor who’s attempts to draw the Professor’s wife into adultery have failed.
The household returns to “normality” with Vanya and it’s other members waiting for the release which death will in time bring.
In order to attend productions at the Mary Walace it is necessary to be a member of The Richmond Shakespeare Society although members can purchase tickets on behalf of non-members. My thanks goes to Emily, my friend Brian’s partner, for bringing my attention to this production and inviting me along). Bleak and profoundly sad and brilliantly performed.
In his poem, “In Memory of W. B Yeats” the poet, W. H. Auden writes “For poetry makes nothing happen”. Auden is, I believe broadly correct. It is social and economic factors, for example widespread starvation which led to the French Revolution of 1789, rather than the writings of philosophers and poets. One can not, however dismiss the role writers play in shaping history. George Orwell was regarded as being a threat to the old Soviet Union (the Communist Party banned his writings along with other critics of Communism). Authors such as Orwell and Kafka did not bring down the Berlin Wall. They did, however help to expose it’s flaws and influenced those intellectuals brave enough to criticise the authoritarian governments under which they lived. 
