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Uncle Vanya is a tragicomedy by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov published in 1899. Its first major performance was in 1900 under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski.
"Uncle Vanya" is unique among Chekhov's major plays because it is essentially an extensive reworking of a play published a decade earlier, "The Wood Demon." By elucidating the specific revisions Chekhov made during the revision process, including reducing the cast-list from almost two-dozen down to a lean nine, changing "The Wood Demon"'s climactic suicide to "Uncle Vanya"'s famous failed homicide, and altering the original happy ending into a more problematic, less final resolution, critics such as Donald Rayfield, Richard Gilman, and Eric Bentley have sought to chart the development of Chekhov's dramaturgical method through the 1890's.
"Uncle Vanya" was published in 1899, but it is difficult to determine when the work was originally finished, or when the revision process took place. Rayfield cites recent scholarship suggesting Chekhov revisited "The Wood Demon" during his trip to the island of Sakhalin, a prison colony in Eastern Russia, in 1891.
Characters
Serebriakoff, Alexander Vladimirovitch = a retired professor
Helena Andreevna(or Yelena or sometimes Elena)= his young and beautiful second wife, 27 years old
Sofia Alexandrovna (Sonia) = his plain daughter by his first marriage
Voinitskaya, Maria Vasilievna = widow of a privy councillor, mother of the first wife of the professor.
Voinitsky, Ivan Petrovitch ("Uncle Vanya") = Sonia's uncle, and Maria Vasilievna's son
Astroff, Michail Lvovich = a doctor
Telegin, Ilya Ilyitch = an impoverished landowner
Marina = an old nurse
A Workman
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.
Film versions
Several well-known film versions of Uncle Vanya exist.
- "Dyadya Vanya," an exceptional Russian film version, adapted and directed by Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky in 1972
- A film version of the star-studded 1963 Chichester Festival stage production, directed for the stage and starring Laurence Olivier ("The finest 'Uncle Vanya' we shall ever see in English," according to one critic.)
- "Country Life," an Australian adaptation, stars Sam Neil as the country doctor.
- Sir Anthony Hopkins directed and starred in "August," an English film adaptation.
- A 1994 American film version, adapted by David Mamet and directed by Louis Malle, was entitled, "Vanya on 42nd Street." It stars Wallace Shawn and Julianne Moore. This version was originally a little-known studio production, and was later adapted for the screen, where it garnered wider acclaim.
Actors who have appeared in notable stage productions of Uncle Vanya include Constantin Stanislavsky, Olga Knipper, Anthony Sher, Ian Mckellan, George C. Scott.
External links
"Uncle Vanya"