By John Shand
THEATRE
UNCLE VANYA
Ensemble Theatre, July 31
Until August 31
Reviewed by JOHN SHAND
★★★★★
Until now, an “adaptation” of a classic tended to be a synonym for a bastardisation. Usually translated from another language, these classics come to us more in the image of the adaptor than the originator: high art rendered low by inferior intellect and artistry.
But it can work. Commissioned by Ensemble Theatre’s artistic director Mark Kilmurry, Joanna Murray-Smith’s adaptation of Uncle Vanya gives us pure Chekhov, just gently refocused through a prism of now, to bring us closer, probably, to the experience of an 1899 Moscow audience. She lets us in on the humour that hasn’t necessarily survived the intervening 125 years in direct translation. If many words are hers rather than Chekhov’s, the spirit of Chekhov is gloriously intact.
John Gaden, Vanessa Downing, Yalin Ozucelik, Tim Walter in Uncle VanyaCredit: Prudence Upton
How black-humoured that spirit is. It can be as dark as Beckett, with just a flicker of light at the end of life’s tunnel of gloom. According to Sonya, perhaps the least self-delusional character, we don’t reach that light until we die, which is grim consolation, although in her mind it’s sufficient justification for abiding the suffering.
Vanya, by contrast, in response to a remark about the pleasant weather early on, retorts “a perfect day for hanging oneself”, and later steals Doctor Astrov’s morphine with a view to doing a quieter job.
I’ve never laughed at Uncle Vanya so much while still feeling Chekhov’s intended sympathy for all the characters. Yes, Sonya, Astrov and Nanny apart, they are foolish, petty, hypocritical, self-absorbed creatures, yearning for what they can’t have and deceiving others and themselves at every turn. Yet Chekhov’s point is they aren’t bad. They’re capable of giving and receiving love, being amused or amusing, and just possibly, like Astrov, of doing some good.
Abbey Morgan, here with Yalin Ozucelik, wins hearts as Sonya. Credit: Prudence Upton
Receiving sympathy from each other is another matter. Much of the humour lies in the characters’ shrugging aside each other’s suffering to dramatise their own – like so many playwrights, with the other characters their puppets.
Kilmurry’s sharp casting has each actor amplifying the inner lives of these deeply flawed people. Yalin Ozucelik is such a wired Vanya that his manic attempt to shoot Serebryakov is not just hilarious but plausible. He speaks with no filter between brain and mouth and resents the hand that life has dealt him even more than does Yelena.
As the latter, stuck with a husband 30 years her senior, Chantelle Jamieson gives her most complete performance so far, trying to suppress her bitterness and extravagant passions amid her equally extravagant boredom.
Abbey Morgan sweetly meets the challenge of Sonya, who must be awkward without the acting being so. Desperate in her unrequited love for Astrov, she, in her 20s, is already the ultimate stoic, resigned to work and death – and, winning our hearts, wishes the others would just calm down.
Tim Walter ensures Astrov credibly has Sonya and Yelena falling for him, as much for his mind as any animal magnetism. Chekhov-like, he’s a selfless, lonely doctor, who consoles himself with vodka and meanwhile implements reforestation projects to steady the climate – and this over a century ago!
David Lynch is a fabulously pompous Serebryakov, red-faced with fury when his word is not law, and John Gaden (Telyeghin) and Vanessa Dowling (Nanny/Maryia) are typically convincing and entertaining.
Kilmurry uses Nick Fry’s charming set in such a way that, with the audience occupying three sides of the Ensemble’s stage, we stare at the actors’ backs less than usual. It’s as if he pulls focus between them for us – rather like Chekhov’s text does.