Miserable Russians
Robert Falls marks three decades as artistic director of Goodman Theatre this year. So how does he celebrate? In part by directing Uncle Vanya— Anton Chekhov’s dark comedy about a bunch of miserable Russians, facing mortality with the growing certainty that they’ve wasted their lives.
The choice seems telling, but Falls says, no, he’s not in the throes of an existential crisis.
Uncle Vanya, he wrote in response to my emailed question, is “one of the greatest ( and most deceptively difficult) plays ever written. . . . I like the play. I like all Chekhov plays and this one has become clearer with age. Didn’t think much beyond that. By the way, I don’t think I’ve wasted [ my] extraordinarily blessed and happy life.”
It’d be foolish of me to question that last sentence when Falls has so far led one of the most charmed professional lives in Chicago— really, American— theater, jumping from tiny Wisdom Bridge to land prettily in what’s more or less turned out to be a tenured seat at a major regional theater. Falls has done Broadway, opera, and not one but two great stagings of The Iceman Cometh. Even his train wrecks, such as an athletically decadent 2006 King
Lear, tend at least to be bold in their awfulness. Can’t argue with his assessment of Uncle
Vanya either. It’s a shaggy, sweet, funny, painful masterwork. And, with this staging, Falls indeed gives it all the clarity of his years.
Chekhov’s title character is a 47- year- old, unmarried gentleman farmer, living on the family estate he runs with his adult niece, Sonya. We’re told Vanya used to be passionate—“lit from within,” in fact. But he’s long since gone dark, he says, because “nobody wanted any of my light.”
Even so, he might’ve soldiered on, burying his loneliness in ledger entries, except that his former brother- in- law, Sonya’s dad, Serebryakov, has come for a long visit. Vanya and Sonya have grounds enough to hate Serebryakov, if only because they’ve slaved for decades to subsidize his big- city career as a philosophy professor. But gouty old Serebryakov has added romantic insult to injury by having an impossibly young and beautiful second wife, Yelena, who wanders the estate in a coma of uselessness. Smitten, Vanya alternates between frantic wooing and a deep, vodka- fueled lethargy.
Sonya, meanwhile, is all too aware that Yelena has absorbed not only Vanya’s attentions but those of her own secret love, an aging, alcoholic, yet poetic doctor named Astrov. Uncle
Vanya can be thought of as a sort of thwarted version of Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde: all yearnings and no orgasms. Nearly everyone we meet exists in a state of suspended adoration.
With an enormous assist from a fluent, gently idiomatic English- language adaptation by Pulitzer Prize- winning playwright Annie Baker ( based on Margarita Shalina’s literal translation), Falls finds and follows a simple, human arc through Chekhov’s brilliantly deliberate mess. No Lear- like overreaching here. No ostentatious displays. No grand directorial conception, it seems, other than to get at the truth of these particular hearts and the manner of their intertwinings. Falls’s e- mail comment that the script has “become clearer with age” is proven over and over again throughout— partly in his appreciation for the humor implicit in the characters’ earnest folly, partly in his well- honed storytelling, and equally in his respect for the suffering of people who see their chances dwindling to nil, the consequences of their actions— or lack of same— finally kicking in.
Tim Hopper makes those mortal stakes vivid as Vanya, his angst and foolishness flashing compulsively through him like stroboscopic effects. At the other end of the spectrum, Marton Csonkas plays Astrov close to the vest, disclosing his inner life in small gestures offered apparently in passing. A perfect example: we see him at the beginning of the play, resting, exhausted, on a couch, yet jumping up at the sound of approaching footsteps— both his vanity and sense of duty expressed in a single motion. That Caroline Neff is cast against type as ostensibly frumpy Sonya renders her confused sense of self all the more evident, while Kristen Bush shows us how thoroughly Yelena is confined by the projections of the men around her. Marilyn Dodds Frank, Mary Ann Thebus, and Larry Neumann Jr. are all superb as idiosyncratic members of the household who look silly yet have as much to lose as anyone and far less control. Between them, Todd Rosenthal’s set and Keith Parham’s lighting allow the estate to speak eloquently for itself.
The Beauty Queen of Leen
ane Maureen ( Jaimelyn Gray) is a middle- aged woman who lives with her senile elderly mother, Mag ( Kate Harris), in a small Irish village. At her breaking point, Maureen has one last chance to be happy, but Mag is determined to stop it. The amazing thing about Irish playwright Martin McDonagh’s 1996 black comedy, here directed by Luda Lopatina Solomon for Bluebird Arts, is how it lulls you into a false sense of security— one minute you’re laughing, the next you’re cringing, as moments of tenderness are quickly outdone by grisly betrayals. The script is a wonderful balance of contrasts, and this cast knows how to interpret them, particularly Gray and Harris, who bring out McDonagh’s hardened themes, the most poignant of which is captivity. — MATT DE LA PEÑA Through 3/ 25: Thu- Sat 7: 30 PM, Sun 2 PM, Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport, 773- 935- 6860, bluebirdarts. org, $ 28, $ 18 students and seniors.
The Columnist In his well- built and weighty if occasionally ossified 2012 drama, playwright David Auburn crafts a compelling portrayal of renowned syndicated columnist Joe Alsop. An erudite political junkie (“Politics is life!” he insists) who craves access to and influence over the Washington elite, he yearns for exuberant conservatism, mistakes his opinions for edicts, and buries himself in work to avoid the messiness of human connection. But only after intermission does Auburn progress from mounting a robust documentary to crafting a play with pressing stakes— for the increasingly dogmatic Alsop, his ineffectual but devoted brother Stewart, and his heartbreakingly unnecessary wife, Susan. Under Keira Fromm’s meticulous yet elastic direction, this ultimately exhilarating American Blues production is an astute cautionary tale about how hubris, ideology, and loyalty obscure vision. The cast, led by a gripping Philip Earl Johnson, are precise, impassioned, and deeply affecting.
— JUSTIN HAYFORD Through 4/ 1: Thu- Fri 7: 30 PM, Sat 3 and 7: 30 PM ( 7: 30 PM only 3/ 11; 3 PM only 4/ 1), Sun 2: 30 PM; also Mon 3/6, 7: 30 PM; Wed 3/ 29, 2: 30 PM, Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont, 773- 327- 5252, americanbluestheater. com, $ 29-$ 49.
Creatives There’s a lot going right in Irvine Welsh and Don De Grazia’s strange new multiheaded beast of a pop- rock opera. A commercially successful Adam Levine type returns to his Chicago college alma mater to host a songwriting competition for a group of students, each with their own neuroses and narratives. Composer and lyricist Laurence Mark Wythe adds original songs to an eclectic roster of classic and modern pop hits, and there’s a unique joy in hearing works by bands often relegated to dressing- room Muzak ( Simple Minds, Happy Mondays) reinterpreted as musical theater. Chicago Theatre Workshop’s slick, handsome production, directed by Tom Mullen, makes a case for its own idiosyncrasies, but even a cast this strong has trouble justifying the production’s late zig in a direction it absolutely need not go. — DAN JAKES Through 3/ 5: Thu- Fri 7: 30 PM, Sat 8 PM, 3 PM, the Edge Theater, 5451 N. Broadway, chicagotheatreworkshop.com, $ 25-$ 35.
Eleemosynary Lee Blessing balances heart and mind in his 1985 one- act character study of three talented but eccentric women: a visionary grandmother, her distant workaholic daughter, and her highachieving but emotionally wounded granddaughter. In less than 90 minutes, we get to know and care about these three, their strengths and foibles, their mutual influences on one another, their stories and why they matter. Blessing’s words are brought to life in AstonRep Theatre Company’s remarkable production, codirected by Jeremiah Barr and Derek Bertelsen and performed by strong actors Debra Rodkin, Alexandra Bennett, and Sarah C. Lo, each of whom infuses her work with lots of warmth and wit, moving us while reminding us constantly of life’s many slings and arrows. — JACK HELBIG Through 3/ 12: Thu- Sat 7: 30 PM, Sun 2: 30 PM, the Frontier, 1106 W. Thorndale, astonrep. com, $ 20.
Eugene Onegin This stunning production of Tchaikovsky’s late 19th- century operatic take on Pushkin’s early 19th- century novel in verse ( originally designed by Michael Levine and directed by Robert Carsen for the Metropolitan Opera) is a piece of minimalist magic that uses light, color, and a nearly bare stage to create an environment that’s the visual embodiment of a lushly lyrical score. Lyric Opera has cast Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecień as the icy title character ( he sang it here nine years ago), and soprano Ana María Martínez as the literary, lovestruck young heroine, Tatiana— whom Onegin only wants when he can’t have her. It’s a role debut for Martínez, but she’s a natural for the part. The surprises are golden- voiced mezzo- soprano Alisa Kolosova as Tatiana’s sister, Olga, and tenor Charles Castronovo, who runs away with the show as Olga’s fiery doomed suitor Lensky; also, a standout lone aria from bass Dmitry Belosselskiy as Tatiana’s blissfully ignorant husband, Prince Gremin. The story turns on life- blighting social conventions from arranged marriages to pistol duels— exactly like the one that killed Pushkin himself, and not so different from the revenge shootings that bloody the streets of Chicago today. Alejo Perez conducts the Lyric Opera orchestra and chorus; in Russian with English subtitles. — DEANNA ISAACS Wed 3/ 1, 2 PM; Sat 3/ 4, Wed 3/ 8, Sat 3/ 11, Tue 3/ 14, Fri 3/ 17, and Mon 3/ 20, 7: 30 PM, Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker, 312- 332- 2244, civicoperahouse.com, $ 17-$ 349.
Gender Breakdown After the Profiles Theatre abuse scandal and the creation of Not in Our House comes playwright Dani Bryant’s ensemble- devised primer on gender disparity in Chicago theater. With a script assembled from interviews with more than 200 local theater makers as well as personal stories from the ten performers, these presentational 70 minutes cover a litany of deeply entrenched systemic biases: hypersexualization of certain female types, exoticization of women of color, pervasive unwillingness to see women as legitimate protagonists, near total erasure of non- cis nonmales. Insightful and provocative, although occasionally repetitive ( and largely blind to class issues), Gender
Breakdown is more a compelling expression of outrage and solidarity than a nuanced examination of complicated issues. Director Erica Vannon’s grounded cast speak with such candor they never seem to be acting at all. — JUSTIN HAYFORD Through 3/ 19: Thu- Sat 7: 30 PM, Sun 3 PM; also Mon 2/ 27 and 3/ 13, 7: 30 PM, Collaboraction, 1579 N. Milwaukee, 312- 226- 9633, $ 15-$ 30.
Private Eyes Steven Dietz’s self- consciously postmodern 1996 comedy, here revived by Piccolo Theatre under the direction of Michael D. Graham, never reaches the levels of madness to which it aspires. The premise— a play about an illicit love affair that flowers during rehearsals for a play about an illicit love affair that flowers during rehearsals— is fun, but the resulting work is belabored and leaden. One problem is that Dietz tells his tale too slowly; another is that most of the plot twists are predictable. But a bigger problem still is simply that his writing lacks heart: Dietz treats his characters as mere pawns in a theatrical game, leaving his actors little to do except speak their lines and avoid stumbling over the furniture. As the three points of the love triangle, Megan DeLay, Kurt Preopper, and Edward Fraim strive mightily to add warmth to this cold work, but the results are lukewarm at best. — JACK HELBIG Through 3/ 19: Fri- Sat 8 PM, Sun 3 PM, Piven Theatre, Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes, Evanston, 847- 866- 8049, piccolotheatre. com, $ 25.