Uncle Vanya

This is a recorded stage production of "Uncle Vanya". I think the acting is good, and the production does take me to a distant time in a rural place. The finale is captivating. I enjoyed watching it.

A 2020 British adaptation of Anton Chekhov's play of the same name.

Ian Rickson's production of Dyadya Vanya was cut short due to quarantine in the final weeks of its run.

The play was hugely popular at the time and this was truly unfortunate for both the production and the audience.

He then collaborated with director Ross MacGibbon to not only recreate the original play, but also reinterpret it in a dazzling way.

This version is not stage-to-home like other National Theater Live events.

The entire theater play has been recreated.

At the beginning of the adaptation of Chekhov's 1899 play, the director makes us watch all the actors come to the location with their masks and change their costumes/personas.

Our venue is the Harold Pinter Theatre, which production designer Rae Smith has crafted so successfully that she can teleport us from 2019 London to 1890s Russia in a split second.

Rae Smith, who also prepared the costume design herself, even managed to portray autumn in Russia in the nineteenth century with the artificial light shining through the glass.

Richard Armitage as Astrov Anna Calder-Marshall reprises her role as Nana.

But of course all eyes are looking for Toby Jones.

In the morning of that night, TJ fascinates with his character Vanya, who has a personality somewhere between the now-recovered Ebenezer Scrooge and the grumpy Truman Capote, from the moment he gets up from the couch until the curtain darkens.

When it comes to theatre, Anglo-Saxons are the best people in the world.

As someone who has read this play many times, watched it on Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and State stages, performed it at the German High School when I was a student, and watched 5 TV and Cinema versions, this is an adaptation that erases all these performances from my mind.

A rare upside to the brutal COVID pandemic in 2020 was the thought to film and release this otherwise stage-only version of Uncle Vanya. I wasn't at all familiar with Chekhov but I'm a huge fan of Toby Jones so thought I'd give it a whirl when the BBC put it on at Christmas - it was strange at first to see "a performance" filmed and felt like a throwback to 1970s television, slightly awkward, slightly staged. You get into it though and it adds a wild spontaneity to the more tense moments. The 1800s Russian play is obviously not at the height of cultural relevance but there are some startlingly existential beats here that feel timeless - not least the doctor's ideas of deforestation - but more perhaps the concept of the characters "carrying on regardless" like the actors have through plague, through political turmoil, onward and onward. The melancholy of their helplessness, trapped in situations not of their making is striking. "We shall patiently bear the trials that fate imposes on us".

This is certainly one of the best renditions of Vanya you can find streaming. The performances and directing are just outstanding.

Glad though I am to see this production, cut short this year by the pandemic, I was disappointed. It saddens me thinking of all London theatres still closed, and actors struggling but I cannot pretend to like a production because of the emotional pain it is causing people who love to see live theatre. My main quarrel with this version of the play is that there is nothing Russian about it. I do not mean having a Samovar on stage but something deeper. The British are often heavy with Chekhov, and this production for me falls into this trap. The actors do their best and if I have to pick out two who I thought achieved something of the ' feel ' of the environment it is supposed to take place in I was impressed by Richard Armitage and Anna Calder-Marshall. Their first scene together was tremendous, light and dark in their dialogue and in their gestures. After that I thought it slowly became more static, various different accents clashing which would not have been the case in the province in which these characters are trapped. I found the use of swear words irritating and added nothing to Chekhov's text. Of course in these past years we seem to think audiences need them. Also monologues said facing the camera and looking at us. Painful and too attention grabbing, when these are musings and almost private, and to be overheard and not stared at in the face. The third act sounded shouty and I switched off mentally. Where is the tragic farce in all this and the sad humour ? Chekhov is not Ibsen, but mood and vast spaces, not a claustrophobic ' Huis Clos '. I also do not think Toby Jones was right for the role, but that is perhaps unfair. The shooting scene was not as farcically dreadful as it should have been. Many will disagree with this, but it is certainly not for me the 5 star production many think it is. It should have been fiercely painful, and horror in the madness that farce can be. Toby Jones lowering his trousers at one point did not make up for the light touch sorely missed by this viewer. And the set and the clothes were an appalling mess and without any real sense of period or location. Chekhov's endings are perhaps the greatest ever written for the stage, and yes as always I was moved. Unity of vision at the end was achieved, and Aimee Woods gave a superlative final monologue, and was a cry of hope relevant today as it was in Chekhov's time.