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Uncle Vanya
“Suffering should be presented as it is expressed in life: not via arms and legs but through tone and expression,” Chekhov wrote. His exhortation for the natural depiction of the human condition onstage is stunningly realized in Senior’s rather dark production of Columbus’s blunt, droll translation. Varying shades of misery, from taut repression to slaphappy bromides, are subtly treated by director and the Strawdog team, now old hands at displaying the comedy of “real life” that Chekhov demanded of the theater. That approach is reinforced by Tom Burch’s exquisite set design, inspired by artist Joseph Cornell: The characters’ litany of grievances bounces off shadow-box walls, their shelves lined with dried and bottled ephemera of life passed by.
The chief complainer is not Vanya but his brother-in-law, the pompous and ill Professor Serebryakov (Tim Curtis), summering in his country house with his young, comely second wife, Yelena; their sojourn throws the home into a grumpy stupor. No one sleeps, some nap and drink, and everyone rambles about. Tom Hickey, who attacks with viper-like precision as a gloomy, acerbic Vanya, leads a skillful cast, including Kyle Hamman’s wry doctor (and proto-environmentalist) Astrov, Michaela Petro’s wild-eyed Sonya, and Shannon Hoag, luminous as the “beautifully idle” Yelena, who locates the darkness beneath her utter boredom. Their messy interactions add up to beautiful Chekhovian chaos and demonstrate that suffering is easier than changing. In Senior’s hands, the stagnant life in Uncle Vanya is both recognizable and compelling.
