About the Play:

Uncle Vanya has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues, Female/Female Scenes, Female/Male Scenes, and Male/Male Scenes.

Uncle Vanya is one of the four magnificent plays that Anton Chekhov wrote in the last years of his life. On the country estate where Vanya's monotonous existence has begun to depress him, chaos pays a visit in the form of his brother-in-law's beautiful new wife. Stephen Mulrine's fluid and economical translation of Uncle Vanya never misses an appropriate comical beat.

Uncle Vanya displays many aspects of human nature, from gaiety and comedy to despair and tragedy. Vanya and his niece, Sonya, work relentlessly to keep their meager estate going. Sonya finds relief in her undisclosed love for Astrov, the local doctor. But all hope of relief is banished when their lives are invaded by Sonya's selfishly destructive father and his beautiful new wife. With the estate's delicate balance in jeopardy, alcohol and lust soon set irreversible events in motion – exposing the pain and absurdity, comedy and poignancy that lie beneath the surface. Though written over a hundred years ago, Uncle Vanya is still very pertinent to our lives today.

Uncle Vanya premiered in 1899 at the Moscow Art Theatre, Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko co-directed the production. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly revived in regional, high school, college, and community theatre productions; this translation by Stephen Mulrine was first staged by English Touring Theatre in 2000.

Cast: 4 female, 6 male

What people say:

"…like many of the characters onstage you may find yourself making noises that could mean you are laughing or crying. And you realize just how fine a line there is between the reponses." — The New York Times

"Stephen Mulrine's translation has an easy, unforced gait, neither stolid nor self-consciously slangy; it strikes exactly the right note." — Financial Times

"…a skillful new translation which moves flexibly between Chekhov's desolation and his domesticity." — Observer

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. His plays, including The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard, are performed in theatres throughout the world and he is second only to Shakespeare in the number of productions his plays receive.

Stephen Mulrine is lecturer in History of Art at Glasgow School of Art. Following a prolific second career writing several original plays for television, and some ninety plus hours of radio drama, serials, adaptations and original plays, he began translating plays, mainly from Russian, in the late 1980s.