The first time we went into lockdown (sad to be even typing 'first time') I remember seeing an instagram post likening the situation to a Chekhov play: nothing happens, we just sit round drinking vodka. For this tiny reason, his dramas are synomonyous with lockdown, but this one is particularly so.
I was in sixth form when I realised he was my favourite writer. We were studying The Seagull and my mind was blown by the intrinsic style of drama- how every line penetrates the events, how every character is entrapped in the complexities of their motivation. A lot of time has passed since then, and my admiration for the Russian naturalist has only grown stronger, with forensic study of him at university and reading and research in my free time. I went to watch this year’s Uncle Vanya on a whim, having only read it once. If I’m honest, I was just keen to make the most of the cinemas before their imminent closure on Thursday. But, it completely knocked me for six- a piece of theatre hasn’t touched me like that in a long time.
Despite my tears at the play’s tragedy, there was definite reassurance in having such a strong reaction, as the theatre we know’s future is uncertain. This particular production was stopped mid rehearsals in March; it was an icon of the pandemic’s disruption and the government’s negligence. It was uncertain whether or not it would ever be performed. The decision was made to keep its staging at the Harold Pinter Theatre, but there would be no inside audience, just crew and a camera man. It would instead be streamed to cinemas nationwide. This alters the play’s dramaturgical symptoms: the rigidity of naturalism's compulsory fourth wall is disrupted and softened slightly, as you’re hyper aware that you’re watching theatre without audience, with actors performing soliloquy like sequences directly to a camera lens. This disturbance to Chekhov’s routine only makes the translation of Vanya’s modern implications more relevant, more haunting.
The play takes place on a provincial estate, with an esteemed, but pretentiously stupid, professor visiting. He ends up staying and residing- altering the lives of all living there ever so slightly, but also absolutely completely. The titular Vanya (Toby Jones) is a hilarious, sarcastic and quickly intelligent man in his late 40s, but a strong depression has lulled him into a state far beneath his potential. His life is one of the play’s tragedies. The professor (Roger Allam) was married to Vanya’s beloved sister, and they had a beloved daughter, Sonia (stellar performance from Aimee Lou Wood). The professor leaves Sonia in Vanya’s care and they work tirelessly to keep the estate running with the accounts in surplus. Sonia shares a love interest with her new stepmother, the beautiful, sad and enigmatic Yelena: handsome philanthropist-come-hedonist Doctor Astrov (Richard Armitage). The play orbits their little dramas over about a year’s period, until the devastating climax in the final act.
Lou Wood’s Sonia is heart breaking. Her character doesn’t change, as much as Chekhov feeds you more about the person behind her tireless empathy and you discover her not to be innocent, but just as violently depressed as her uncle. But she is a voice of hope, of strength, and her relevance to our current time is palpable. Her and Vanya are stuck in the same house, doing the same things, whilst watching (and assuming that) everyone close to them have change in their life. They both experience crushing unrequited love, only strengthening their love and willingness to cope for each other.
Chekhov’s writing aligns with Stanislavski’s method: every line written and spoken holds an objective direct to the character’s arching agency. This means his characters can transpose time, their intentions involve other characters but are not particular to the socio-political climate, history or technology of the time. Despite being late 19th C, his realism is not that of a history play. This production applies directly to now.
Its relevance is perfect. At its time of composure the creatives were not aware that it was going to be staged to a country on the brink of its second lockdown. It is one of the most raw, visceral and brutally accurate depictions of domestic depression I’ve encountered, on stage or screen or page. Sonia’s final lines, about the need to push through and how to persevere, should be broadcast nationally. I was in floods of tears as the play ended, but left with a calming hope. Doctor Astrov incessantly refers to the comfort he finds in thinking of people 200 years from him ridiculing and making light of the tribulations of 19th C life. This message holds true to now: remembering your macro insignificance to micro importance to those close to you is a key to getting through the struggles facing us all in November- it relieves the mass pressure Boris and co are criminally shifting our way. Sonia’s empathy is her strongest virtue and saviour, and it should be ours as well.
(Also, shout out to the elderly gentleman on my row in the cinema who offered me his hankie and a minstrel when I started crying. Appreciate it.)
No comments:
Post a Comment