Man alive, Chekhov needed a friend, am I right? Christopher Durang could have easily made a less-funny Chekhovian play called Vanya & Sonya & Depression & Sadness and we’d all get it. Actually, it should still be funny, because Chekhov, the master, infused his gloomy, depressing (if you drink every time I use this word in this piece you will get through quarantine like a champ) classic Uncle Vanya with just as much humor as sadness, and just as much heart as melancholy, just as much humanity and sad beauty as grief. The current London production of Uncle Vanya is a fantastic, nearly flawless revival, one of the many heartbreaking casualties of this strange time of isolation. Toby Jones in the titular role redefines how fully felt this unforgettable character can be, and he leads a pretty great cast in this magnificent production.

If you don’t know Chekhov’s classic of countryside despair, Uncle Vanya tells about a man named Vanya who lives with his niece Sonya in a crumbling country estate where every day looks the same and their future looks bleak but they just go through each day doing their paperwork and drinking their vodka and, like, sighing, I guess. But excitement enters with the unwelcome arrival of Vanya’s brother/Sonya’s father Aleksandr (played by the wonderful Ciaran Hinds), a famous professor who is lauded as a genius but is really just an annoying and ignorant blowhard and my favorite part was when Vanya tried to shoot him and my least favorite part was when he missed. Aleksandr has a hot new young wife Yelena (played by understudy Afia Abusham when I saw it, who was decent but didn’t seem to quite get her footing enough to make an impression among this stellar cast) and Vanya is like OH DIP A HOT WOMAN AND ONE I’M NOT RELATED TO I HAVEN’T SEEN ONE IN YEARS! And he falls in love with her but Yelena is like mmm pass and falls instead for the hot town doctor who pays ever increasing visits since her arrival. Sadly, Sonya, who is good (and Natasha’s young and Andrei isn’t heeere) but plain is like SUPES in love with hot doctor (Richard Armitage, magnetic) but he is not attracted to her in the least even though he is as lonely as everyone else and it would be nice if he and Sonya saved each other from a life of dreary solitude but hey he just doesn’t love her you can’t force it so instead he ALSO falls for Yelena (who is MARRIED, my dudes) (okay to an old buffoon but STILL). So everyone is super unhappy and lonely and depressed because they know this is their lot in life and it will never change. Russians, man.

Toby Jones’s Vanya is, well, everything. He so completely and perfectly inhabits Vanya’s despair with every joke and gesture and gaze, a despair that informs everything Vanya says or does though he tries to keep it bubbling under the surface, at least part of the time. It’s heartbreaking that he has lived a life so barren and knows that there’s nothing he can do to change it (I mean, I’m optimistic that if he really wanted to, he could change his life, but Russians man). Jones also infuses his Vanya with a sad but incredible humor, because I admit nothing is funnier than self-hate, it’s true. His seemingly nonstop movement, even at rest, and elastic facial expressions added to the creation of a dynamic Vanya for the ages.

In a cast this starry, it’s surprising and impressive that despite Toby’s complete encompassing of his character, the standout is young Aimee Lou Wood as Sonya. I can’t think of a more efficient performance in recent times, with so much done with comparatively little. With only a few lines at the end of the first act, she broke my heart, and continued breaking it throughout the rest of the show. Her sad monologue that ends the show had me riveted. Husbo thought the delivery was painfully labored and it took him out, but for me, I needed all that time to breathe in between words because I was still so shaken by her final interaction with the doctor, an interaction so subtle and so exquisitely performed that I wanted to gasp but instead cried. She’s an incredible young actor that I can’t wait to see more of. Her performance is a huge part of what makes this production so beautiful, so heartbreaking, and so – one more for the road – depressing.

INFORMATION

After a 7:30pm start (probably 7:33 or so, happily not as late as most shows), Act I ended at 8:44pm and Act II at 10:12, so note that it is 12 minutes longer than it says on the official show website which might not seem like a lot to you but it’s enough to be wrong.

Vanya’s annoying mother is extra annoying because they have her smoke a lot. She has like 4 lines but it was important to establish that her character smokes?? MISS ME WITH THIS UNNECESSARY LUNG DAMAGE PLEASE.

This was supposed to run until May 2 but the world is on a break from life so I suggest reading the play and perhaps acting out all the parts with the people you are locked down with. If you are locked down alone, do all the parts yourself like when I sing “Moscow” from The Great Comet it doesn’t make you look or feel crazy no sirree I promise totally a normal thing to do.

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