 |
|
|
Uncle Vanya/ Ivanov reviewed by HH
Director Sam Mendes is signing off after ten years at the Donmar Warehouse with a superlative Vanya. This is the story of missed opportunities, unrequited love and of lifelong sacrifices made for the wrong people. Vanya and Sonya, both with the potential to love and achieve, lay aside their own dreams and ambitions to support their relative, the worthless academic, Serebryakov (David Bradley). Synopsis Initially, they believe satisfaction will come in knowing that they have enabled him to achieve greatness. They also both have romantic hopes of their own, Vanya for Serebryakov's deliciously sensual wife Yelena (Helen McCrory), and Sonya for the local doctor, Astrov (Mark Strong), whose idealism is gradually being crushed by the demands of his patients and drowned in the vodka bottle. By the end of the play, Vanya and Sonya know Serebryakov to be incapable of both greatness and appreciation of their sacrifice. Their attempts to win love have failed. And they are left to continue their former lives without even the comfort of hope or reward - at least not on this earth. Drudgery and despair It sounds remorselessly grim, and indeed Mendes plays down the comedy that some directors emphasise in Chekhov, despite a lively 'version' of the play by Brian Friel. Simon Russell-Beale's Vanya is younger than many actors who have played this role, making his fate more tragic, as his relative youth suggests the possibility of escape to another kind of life is tantalisingly within reach. Yet you know that it will not happen. This actor has played a memorable Hamlet recently, and one is invited to see the parallels, not just in the relationships with usurping male relatives and a seemingly insensitive mother, but in the waste of a gifted and loving man's life. This Vanya's self-mockery is more bitter, even, than that of Hamlet, and he only puts up one glorious moment of fight, challenging Serebryakov over the future of the estate, before returning to drudgery. Cosmic justice But it is that moment of rebellion and outrage, as well as the touching faith of Emily Watson's Sonya that, in the end, they will receive their rest and reward in heaven, that makes this play so heartbreaking and, ultimately, uplifting. One doesn't need to share Sonya's faith to share her longing for cosmic justice and restoration, and to rejoice in signs of their spirits being, perhaps, not altogether crushed in this life. No such hope over at the National Theatre, in Katie Mitchell's strong production of the earlier work, Ivanov. Had the play begun some years earlier, it would have been the romantic story of a woman who gives up her Jewish faith and is estranged from her family for the sake of love. Alas, we meet Anna (Juliet Aubrey) and her husband Ivanov (Owen Teale) a few years on. He has ceased to love her, for reasons that he does not understand and which agonise him, more so because she is now dying. For this 'hero', there is no respite from his stifling inner despair - certainly not being adored by a new wife - other than a pistol. |
Design by Design
Blues
Development and administration: Rachel
Jordan
© CounterCulture 2001