Theatre: Uncle Vanya
Harold Pinter Theatre, London SW1 (0844-871 7622). Until 2 May Running time: 2hrs 30mins ★★★★★
This ravishing revival of “one of the greatest plays” in the world canon is a must-see, said Dominic Maxwell in The Times. It is superbly directed by Ian Rickson; the dilapidated countryhouse set devised by Rae Smith is as “beautiful and as stifling as an Old Master”; the fresh adaptation of Chekhov’s script by Conor McPherson is “almost impossibly contemporary in the way it packs so much lust, wit, rage and regret” into its brisk but unhurried running time; and every performance is first-rate, “every character fully realised”.
Vanya is the quintessential Chekhovian anti-hero – a perennial underachiever facing up to the disappointments of middle age, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. And it’s hard to think of better casting for the part than Toby Jones, who gives a bravura performance – and a profoundly moving one. I have seen angrier Vanyas – Roger Allam, for example; and more melancholy ones (notably, Simon Russell Beale). But I don’t think I’ve seen any actor better catch Vanya’s “tragicomic mixture of fury and futility”. Nor is Jones the only one to make his mark on this production. The cast is a “store-house of talent”. Richard Armitage, for example, is outstanding in the role as the “tree-hugging” doctor, Astrov.
Yet for all the undoubted class of Jones and Armitage, it is the women who “steal the show”, said Quentin Letts in The Sunday
Times. Aimee Lou Wood is quite brilliant as Vanya’s self-doubting niece, Sonya – all “doleful gawping” at the dashing Astrov. However, the very “best thing” about this production is the “ravishingly bored, passionate and tender” performance from Rosalind Eleazar as Yelena, said Patrick Marmion in the Daily Mail. Last year, Eleazar stole the show from Matthew Broderick in The Starry Messenger. Here, she lights up the stage as the young wife of an elderly professor. It’s a career-defining performance, said Demetrios Matheou in The Hollywood Reporter, and just one of the delights of a “brilliantly, buoyantly accessible production” that perfectly captures the essence of Chekhov: the funnier it gets, the “sadder and more painful it becomes”. It’s exhilarating theatre.