David Cromer (right) is the eponymous Uncle Vanya in Jack Serio’s production of Anton Chekhov’s play in a private loft.
Director Jack Serio’s intimate staging of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya had a brief run in July at a private loft in the Flatiron District (16 nights, with 40 spectators per night), and has now returned for a few weeks at a different loft in the same neighborhood. The original run cultivated a buzz of exclusivity—“sold-out-before-you-heard-about-it,” as described in the New Yorker. The impression that you have been granted entrée to an event persists in the encore engagement: the program given to the relatively few (but more than 40) audience members includes a countdown of how many performances remain.
The most successful Chekhov productions, whether in a private space or a traditional theater, give one the sense of accidentally overhearing real people, of being allowed to witness the pains of unrequited love and melancholy and betrayal, and the serving of tea and cutting of bread that accompanies all of it. Stanislavski’s famous 1898 production of Chekhov’s The Seagull, which employed offstage sounds such as birdsong, supposedly had the audience so spellbound by seeing reality represented on stage that they forgot to applaud at the end.
Retired professor Serebryakov (Thomas Jay Ryan, left), with this much younger wife, Yelena (Julia Chan), converse during a sleepless night.
This production of Vanya uses recordings of birdsong (sound design by Christopher Darbassie), though those chirps mingle with the real-life sounds of the New York City subway rumbling beneath. This contrast is fitting, as the production uses modern dress (costume design by Ricky Reynoso) but doesn’t otherwise modernize—the characters still await carriages and Vanya doesn’t kill time by staring at his iPhone, even if he’s dressed for it. Serio has chosen the 1997 translation by Paul Schmidt, which has a contemporary, colloquial, and distinctly American quality: “freak,” for example, is a word that Dr. Astrov favors, rather than “eccentric” or “misfit”: “And people are freaks, you know?” he says to Marina, the family’s aged nurse.
Most of the action takes place around two farmhouse tables, but sometimes the characters, in more intimate moments, inhabit the ends or corners of the loft space (set design by Walt Spangler). The audience is seated along every wall, only feet from the actors. Lamps hang from the ceiling throughout the room, though lighting designer Stacey Derosier also makes terrific use of candlelight.
Schmidt’s translation has been described as “muscular,” a word that also works to describe some of the insightful and moving performances in this production. Marin Ireland’s Sonya bursts with energy and humor, in contrast to sometimes reserved characterizations; Ireland brings out these elements of the character without attenuating her anguish. Sonya is in love with Astrov (an excellent Will Brill), himself a bundle of contradictions, embittered and yet full of dreams as he charts the demise of the surrounding forest, but whose romantic intentions are turned destructively toward Yelena (Julia Chan), the young wife of the retired, ailing, and pompous Professor Serebryakov (Thomas Jay Ryan).
Ryan’s Serebryakov gathers the household so that he can propose selling the estate. Photographs by Emilio Madrid.
In his sexual pursuit of Yelena, Astrov’s competition, if it can be called that, is Vanya (David Cromer), who with his niece Sonya has run the estate for the benefit of the professor, and feels that his life and talents have been squandered in rural obscurity. Yelena treats the 47-year-old Vanya as an amusing friend, and he knows that he will never be anything more to her: “You’re my life, my happiness, my youth! I know there’s no chance of us ever . . . being together—zero—but I don’t care.”
Chan imbues Yelena, perhaps the play’s most enigmatic character, with a sense of depth, making her seem more than just a frivolous and stylish player of romantic games. Ryan captures the professor’s arrogant and condescending comedy—particularly hilarious in the scene in which he lays out his plan to sell the estate. Will Dagger has a wonderful turn as “Waffles,” a guitar-playing dependent in the household.
If this Vanya isn’t quite as moving or devastating as it should be, it is because Vanya himself feels marginalized, almost absent, in the production, a result of Serio’s direction and Cromer’s perhaps too restrained performance. This is especially problematic in what should be the climactic scene of Vanya’s eruption and pathetic attempt at violence, when he gives vent to the realization of a wasted life, with no chance to start again.
But there are moments of brilliance, too. When Sonya and Astrov nibble on cheese and discuss life and love during the storm, lit only by candlelight, their private moment is so extraordinary that one could be forgiven for believing that it just might work out between them this time.
OHenry Productions’ Uncle Vanya runs through Sept. 3 at 873 Broadway. Evening performances are 7:30 p.m. Thursday–Monday; matinees are at 2 p.m. on Sunday. For tickets and more information, visit vanyanyc.com.
Playwright: Anton Chekhov
Director: Jack Serio
Sets: Walt Spangler
Lighting: Stacey Derosier
Costumes: Ricky Reynoso
Sound: Christopher Darbassie
Dr. Astrov (Will Brill, right) gives Yelena a farewell kiss. Photographs by Emilio Madrid.
