Theater review by Adam Feldman
Some of the best ensemble acting in town is currently at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, which is remarkable not because of the material—Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya has always been a great piece for ensembles—but because it’s a one-man show. That’s perhaps slightly less surprising if you know that the man in question is the extraordinary Andrew Scott, who has played roles as varied as the wicked Moriarty on Sherlock, the titular sociopath on Ripley, the sensitive gay writer in All of Us Strangers and, of course, Fleabag's Hot Priest. But none of these performances, by themselves, can prepare you for the gorgeous finesse with which he shuffles the roles in Vanya. The dexterity of his hand is equaled by the gentleness of his touch.
In adapting Chekhov’s 1897 tragicomedy for solo performance, playwright Simon Stephens (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) has also moved its time and place, Anglicizing the characters’ names and transporting them, if not quite to the present, then at least (based on the tech they use) to some point in the '80s. Many modern versions of Uncle Vanya—including last year’s revival at Lincoln Center and Richard Nelson’s in 2018—are set in recent times, but Stephens reimagines the world of the play more thoroughly than most, while retaining its essential qualities. For example: Aleksandr, the pompous and gouty professor of the original, is now Alexander, a pompous and gouty film director; the bitter title character, Ivan, wears douchy sunglasses and carries a little red sound-effects gizmo that he uses to sarcastically score his own life to applause, wolf whistles or the whine of a sad trombone.
Vanya | Photograph: Courtesy Julieta Cervantes
The middle-aged Ivan has spent his life managing the family potato farm on behalf of Alexander—his onetime idol, and the widower of his beloved sister Anna—with help from his niece, the kind but plain Sonia. She pines for the local doctor, Michael, but he only has eyes for the beautiful Helena, Alexander’s much younger new wife. Helena returns his passion but feels bound to her marriage; Ivan also desires Helena, but she resents his crude attentions. Both Michael and Ivan attempt, unsuccessfully, to drown their depression with Smirnoff. That’s a lot of misery to keep track of, but Scott and director Sam Yates keep everything elegantly sorted. Each character has a specific voice and a signature prop: Sonia frets with a tea towel, Helena fusses with her necklace, Michael bounces a tennis ball in place.
Juggling characters can often look frantic onstage, but it doesn’t in Vanya. Nothing about Scott’s performance feels hurried; he is unafraid of long silences, like the ones between Michael and Helena that practically heave with the heat of what they can’t say. In that sense, it is of a piece with the use of negative space in Rosanna Vize’s set. (Scott, Stephens, Yates and Vize are jointly credited as Vanya’s co-creators.) Vize uses quickly identifiable features to help individuate the characters: Helena drifts on a suspended swing stage left, while on stage right the earthy employee Maureen hovers by the ashtray and kettle (Scott has a blast with her); the acne-scarred imbecile Liam sits on a tiny plastic stool, while Ivan’s judgmental mother gets to feel superior on a three-step staircase to nowhere. But between these sharply defined spaces is an equally sharp sense of absence. The specter of the late Anna, keenly missed by Ivan, is suggested through the movement of keys on a player piano. (We can’t see Anna, but many characters flicker between seen and unseen in this production; her invisibility, in this context, doesn’t mean she’s not there.)
Vanya | Photograph: Courtesy Julieta Cervantes
The only unfortunate thing about this moving and revealing Vanya, in fact, is how few people will be able to see it live: It is only running for eight weeks, and like the current revival of A Streetcar Named Desire with Scott’s All of Us Strangers costar Paul Mescal, it is outrageously costly. (The few remaining seats for sale start at $319, and scalpers are charging even more; you can stream a recording of the show, mind you, for the price of a $13 subscription to National Theatre Home.) But in this case, at least, fans who pay to watch Scott in person are getting something truly extraordinary from him, and a huge amount of it—nearly two straight hours at very close range. Multicharacter solo shows in this mold, even when executed well, can seem show-offy or even exhibitionistic: playing with oneself in public for the thrill of being admired. Scott’s work here, virtuosic though it is, transcends that; price notwithstanding, it's a generous performance, with a humanity that feels true to what draws us to Chekhov in the first place. A show like Vanya telescopes the empathy at the core of theater’s appeal: how audience members can see themselves in many different people, and how actors can find many people in themselves.
Vanya. Lucille Lortel Theatre (Off Broadway). By Anton Chekhov. Adapted by Simon Stephens. Directed by Sam Yates. With Andrew Scott. Running time: 1hr 55mins. No intermission.
Follow Adam Feldman on X: @FeldmanAdam
Follow Adam Feldman on Bluesky: @FeldmanAdam
Follow Adam Feldman on Threads: @adfeldman
Follow Time Out Theater on X: @TimeOutTheater
Keep up with the latest news and reviews on our Time Out Theater Facebook page
Vanya | Photograph: Courtesy Julieta Cervantes
