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Uncle Vanya (van Itallie adaptation)
Uncle Vanya (van Itallie adaptation)
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Author: Anton Chekhov Adapted by: Jean-Claude van Itallie Publisher: Dramatists Play Service Format: Softcover # of Pages: 48 Pub. Date: 1997 Edition: Acting ISBN-10: 082221587X ISBN-13: 9780822215875 Cast Size: 4 women, 5 men
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About
the Play:
Uncle Vanya is a full-length drama by Anton Chekhov,
in a revised English version by Jean-Claude van Itallie. Vanya
comes to question his devotion to an aging professor, whose wife
Vanya loves even as she is drawn to the enigmatic doctor Astrov. The
people in Uncle Vanya are not the best people or the worst.
They are like each of us – complex individuals with needs and
dreams – trying to deal with life one day at a time. Especially
recommended for school and contest use.
Uncle Vanya takes place over the course of one summer. The
scene is a country estate in the declining days of Czarist Russia,
the home of an old and ailing professor, his young wife, and various
other family members. For years the estate, under the management of
Uncle Vanya, brother of the professor's first wife, has yielded a
modest income, but now, with the professor older and bored, he offers
the idea of selling the estate and investing the money in bonds – a
prospect most unsettling for those who have come to regard the place
as their home. Counterpointed against the professor's unrest are the
situations of others in the family: his daughter Sonya's unrequited
passion for the local doctor, Astrov, who visits often; Vanya's love
for the professor's young wife; and her own unspoken attraction to
another. Throughout there is the bittersweet, deeply human aura of
real people helplessly in thrall to events and feelings beyond their
control. In the end the estate is not sold and, as the summer wanes,
the professor and his wife depart, leaving the others to settle back
into the uneventful but bearable routine that has become their way of
life. Uncle Vanya captures the timeless desire for love and a
better life and the universal sense of restlessness.
Jean-Claude van Itallie's version of Uncle Vanya was
first produced in 1983 at LaMama ETC in New York City. Later produced
at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, and on Broadway, in 1995, at
The Circle in the Square Theatre. The
play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and
workshops and is regularly performed in regional repertory, high
school, college, and community theatre productions.
Cast: 4 women, 5 men
What people say:
"The crispest and most
powerful version extant." — The New Republic
"Intense and elliptical."
— Village Voice About the Playwright:
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904) was the author of
hundreds of short stories and several plays and is regarded by many
as both the greatest Russian storyteller and the father of modern
drama. From Chekhov, many contemporary playwrights have learnt how to
use mood, apparent trivialities and inaction to highlight the
internal psychology of characters. He is buried in Novodevichy
Cemetery in Moscow.
Jean-Claude van Itallie is one of the most distinguished
playwrights of the American avant-garde. Born in Brussels, Belgium,
he was three when his family fled the Holocaust to America as
refugees in 1940. He grew up on suburban Long Island, graduated
Harvard in 1958, and in the 1960s was a seminal force in the
explosive New York Off-Broadway theatre. He may be best-known for
America Hurrah (his acclaimed anti-Viet Nam war trilogy
comprised of Interview, TV and Motel), The
Serpent, Tibetan Book of the Dead, and his translations of
Chekhov's major plays, which are prized by directors and actors for
their clarity and subtle rhythms, are possibly the most performed
Chekhov versions on the American stage. |
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