A Weekend, In the Country...

...with Anton Chekhov, at Lincoln Center.

Uncle Vanya at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater is, on a Sunday afternoon, like escaping the city for two and a half hours of philosophy, literature and romance. The play, in a new version by playwright Heidi Schreck and directed by Lila Neugebauer, really moves with sharp and crisp dialogue that captures the pathos of life and love in a long summer, far from the city.

This is not A Little Night Music, the Stephen Sondheim musical I’m referencing in the head and subhead, but for all of its deep psychology and heady themes, Chekhov viewed most of his stage work as comedies, meant to delight as much as any musical.

Steve Carell plays the titular uncle who has for decades been caretaker of the working farm, working with Waffles, the family valet, a nurse, the matriarch Marina, and his niece Sonia, who is the daughter of Alexander, a retired professor of humanities who had married Vanya’s now dead sister and is now married to Maria, who drives just about everybody wild with desire.

Sonia is the true owner of the estate, as it is her inheritance from her mother, but the proceeds from the farm have been subsidizing the professor’s lifestyle. The problem is that returns are diminishing. So the professor has moved to the country, with his beguiling wife, who doesn’t get on well with Sonia at all. They are also frequently visited by a hard drinking, overworked country doctor who also paints landscapes and is trying to protect the forest from being burned for industry.

The doctor is in love with Maria, and Maria is cheating on the professor, but not with Vanya, who is in love with Maria, who at best finds him amusing. Maria is in love with the doctor, but she suppresses it, mostly. Sonia is in love with the doctor but he doesn’t have eyes for her at all.

Chekhov, by the way, was also a physician and a hard-working one at that, dealing with a chronic personal health crises and public outbreaks of cholera and flu in Russia’s fading empire. It’s possible that the doctor, Astrov, is a bit of self-parody. Chekhov is always a bit hard on his tortured intellectuals, as he is always a bit hard on himself.

The Professor, who is used to being treated as a genius and who Marina just adores, has slowly taken over the household, drawing resentment from Vanya, who was once his close friend. The Professor does not seem to realize how much he’s lived off of Vanya’s labors. His entitlement and lack of gratitude have worn thin. When the professor gathers the family together to suggest that they sell the farm and invest the money in stocks and bonds to increase their income, he pushes Vanya first to a murderous impulse and then to suicidal depression.

It’s hilarious.

The play reminds us that our ambitions never stop, even with age. Vanya still seeks love and fulfillment, just like his young niece. In retirement, the professor seeks to maintain his cultural influence and bon vivant existence. Maria, married to an older man, still wants adventure and romance, and the country doctor sees bigger things for himself as well.

For those interested, this play also forms the basis of Our Country Friends, Gary Shteyngart’s pandemic-era novel, which is also funny and moving and shows, as this production does, how Chekhov’s themes of lust and commerce are truly timeless.

The Renaissance Son and I got to see this production as a holiday gift from The Scholar Wife. There’s plenty more time in this run and for readers in the city, we really recommend it. I haven’t made this a traditional review with notes on each performance, but the cast keeps the story moving. Carell is at home on stage and though the audience applauded his first appearance like a dinner theater crowd popping for Billy Bird in a roadshow production of the female Odd Couple, he is not a TV actor put behind the footlights.

Enough. Go see Vanya if you can. A little trip to the country can be clarifying, especially when you can take the subway home.