{"id":11500,"date":"2020-03-19T18:24:45","date_gmt":"2020-03-19T18:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/?p=11500"},"modified":"2021-11-09T21:49:41","modified_gmt":"2021-11-09T21:49:41","slug":"uncle-vanya-at-the-harold-pinter-boy-those-russians-know-from-debilitating-depression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/2020\/03\/19\/uncle-vanya-at-the-harold-pinter-boy-those-russians-know-from-debilitating-depression\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncle Vanya at the Harold Pinter: Boy those Russians Know From Debilitating Depression"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
It\u2019s Theatre Thursday during a pandemic, which means I\u2019m going to rave about a show that you can no longer see because THIS! WORLD! IS ON FIIIIIIIRE.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Man alive, Chekhov needed a friend, am I right? Christopher\nDurang could have easily made a less-funny Chekhovian play called Vanya & Sonya & Depression & Sadness<\/em>\nand we\u2019d all get it. Actually, it should still be funny, because Chekhov, the\nmaster, infused his gloomy, depressing (if you drink every time I use this word\nin this piece you will get through quarantine like a champ) classic Uncle Vanya<\/em> with just as much humor as\nsadness, and just as much heart as melancholy, just as much humanity and sad\nbeauty as grief. The current London\nproduction of Uncle Vanya <\/em>is a fantastic,\nnearly flawless revival, one of the many heartbreaking casualties of this\nstrange time of isolation. Toby Jones in the titular role redefines how fully\nfelt this unforgettable character can be, and he leads a pretty great cast in\nthis magnificent production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you don\u2019t know Chekhov\u2019s classic of countryside despair, Uncle Vanya<\/em> tells about a man named\nVanya who lives with his niece Sonya in a crumbling country estate where every\nday looks the same and their future looks bleak but they just go through each\nday doing their paperwork and drinking their vodka and, like, sighing, I guess.\nBut excitement enters with the unwelcome arrival of Vanya\u2019s brother\/Sonya\u2019s\nfather Aleksandr (played by the wonderful Ciaran Hinds), a famous professor who\nis lauded as a genius but is really just an annoying and ignorant blowhard and\nmy favorite part was when Vanya tried to shoot him and my least favorite part\nwas when he missed. Aleksandr has a hot new young wife Yelena (played by\nunderstudy Afia Abusham when I saw it, who was decent but didn\u2019t seem to quite\nget her footing enough to make an impression among this stellar cast) and Vanya\nis like OH DIP A HOT WOMAN AND ONE I\u2019M NOT RELATED TO I HAVEN\u2019T SEEN ONE IN\nYEARS! And he falls in love with her but Yelena is like mmm pass and falls\ninstead for the hot town doctor who pays ever increasing visits since her\narrival. Sadly, Sonya, who is good (and Natasha\u2019s young and Andrei isn\u2019t\nheeere) but plain is like SUPES in love with hot doctor (Richard Armitage,\nmagnetic) but he is not attracted to her in the least even though he is as\nlonely as everyone else and it would be nice if he and Sonya saved each other\nfrom a life of dreary solitude but hey he just doesn\u2019t love her you can\u2019t force\nit so instead he ALSO falls for Yelena (who is MARRIED, my dudes) (okay to an\nold buffoon but STILL). So everyone is super unhappy and lonely and depressed\nbecause they know this is their lot in life and it will never change. Russians,\nman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Toby Jones\u2019s Vanya is, well, everything. He so completely\nand perfectly inhabits Vanya\u2019s despair with every joke and gesture and gaze, a\ndespair that informs everything Vanya says or does though he tries to keep it\nbubbling under the surface, at least part of the time. It\u2019s heartbreaking that\nhe has lived a life so barren and knows that there\u2019s nothing he can do to\nchange it (I mean, I\u2019m optimistic that if he really wanted to, he could change\nhis life, but Russians man). Jones also infuses his Vanya with a sad but incredible\nhumor, because I admit nothing is funnier than self-hate, it\u2019s true. His\nseemingly nonstop movement, even at rest, and elastic facial expressions added\nto the creation of a dynamic Vanya for the ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a cast this starry, it\u2019s surprising and impressive that\ndespite Toby\u2019s complete encompassing of his character, the standout is young\nAimee Lou Wood as Sonya. I can\u2019t think of a more efficient performance in\nrecent times, with so much done with comparatively little. With only a few\nlines at the end of the first act, she broke my heart, and continued breaking\nit throughout the rest of the show. Her sad monologue that ends the show had me\nriveted. Husbo thought the delivery was painfully labored and it took him out,\nbut for me, I needed all that time to breathe in between words because I was\nstill so shaken by her final interaction with the doctor, an interaction so\nsubtle and so exquisitely performed that I wanted to gasp but instead cried.\nShe\u2019s an incredible young actor that I can\u2019t wait to see more of. Her\nperformance is a huge part of what makes this production so beautiful, so\nheartbreaking, and so \u2013 one more for the road \u2013 depressing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n INFORMATION<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n After a 7:30pm start (probably 7:33 or so, happily not as\nlate as most shows), Act I ended at 8:44pm and Act II at 10:12, so note that it\nis 12 minutes longer than it says on the official show website which might not\nseem like a lot to you but it\u2019s enough to be wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vanya\u2019s annoying mother is extra annoying because they have\nher smoke a lot. She has like 4 lines but it was important to establish that\nher character smokes?? MISS ME WITH THIS UNNECESSARY LUNG DAMAGE PLEASE. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This was supposed to run until May 2 but the world is on a\nbreak from life so I suggest reading the play and perhaps acting out all the\nparts with the people you are locked down with. If you are locked down alone,\ndo all the parts yourself like when I sing \u201cMoscow\u201d from The Great Comet<\/em> it doesn\u2019t make you look or feel crazy no sirree I\npromise totally a normal thing to do. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s Theatre Thursday during a pandemic, which means I\u2019m going to rave about a show that you can no longer see because THIS! WORLD! IS ON […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[200,196,212,213],"class_list":["post-11500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-london","tag-london-theatre","tag-theatre","tag-uncle-vanya"],"yoast_head":"\n