A masterclass in using the everyday to write about the universal, Uncle Vanya remains keenly relevant nearly 130 years after it was written.
When Uncle Vanya opened at the Moscow Art Theater in 1899, reception was lukewarm, but the play's popularity grew as audiences came to understand that theater could mirror their lives.
In 1906, Rachmaninoff set Sonya's final lines to music.
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Chekhov published regularly starting at age 20 and kept up regular correspondence with writers, publishers, family, and friends. His work began to be noticed in English in the early 1900s, shortly after his death.
Chekhov in his study at the White Dacha
Chekhov wrote letters to his siblings, his lovers, his publishers, his fellow writers. Many of the letters illuminate his thinking about and approach to writing.
Source: Chekhov, Anton. How to Write Like Chekhov : Advice and Inspiration, Straight from His Own Letters and Work, edited by Piero Brunello, and Lena Lencek, Da Capo Press, 2008.
Chekhov has come to be understood among writers as representative of a certain approach to character and story.
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Chekhov wrote The Wood Demon, the first version of Uncle Vanya, in 1889 and it saw some small productions, but was refused by the state theaters in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The Moscow Art Theater did not exist yet. Scholars believe that some of the revision work that resulted in Vanya was done while Chekhov traveled to the Sakhalin Island. The revised Vanya is more concise and streamlined than The Wood Demon.
Design for Act I backdrop, V. Simov, Moscow Art Theater
The text below is Annie Baker's translation, which was first performed at the Soho Rep Theater in New York City in 2012.
Act I Opening
A garden. A section of the house is visible, along with the verandah. A table is set for tea underneath an old poplar. Benches, chairs. A guitar lies on one of the benches. Not far from the table is a swing. It's between two and three in the afternoon. Overcast. Marina, a sedentary old woman, sits by the samovar, knitting a stocking. Astrov walks around nearby.
MARINA (pouring a cup of tea)
You should eat something.
ASTROV (reluctantly taking the cup)
I don't feel like it.
MARINA
How 'bout a little vodka?
ASTROV
No.
I don't always drink vodka, you know.
It's too hot anyway.
Pause.
ASTROV
Nanny, how long have we known each other?
MARINA (thinking it over)
How long? God help me. Hmmm. Let's see... you first came here ... when? Sonyechka's mother was still alive... Vera Petrovna... you stayed with us twice, two different winters... so ... eleven years?
(after a moment)
Maybe more.
ASTROV
Have I changed?
MARINA (thinking it over)
Oh yes. You were young then, very handsome, and now youre old. You're not as attractive anymore.
You also drink.
ASTROV
Yep. In ten years l've turned into a completely different person. You wanna know why? I work too much, Nanny. I'm on my feet all day, I never relax, and then at night I lie awake in bed, just waiting for someone to come knock on my door and drag me away to see another patient. I haven't had a day off the entire time you've known me. Of course I seem old.
Yeah, and for what it is, life is pretty boring and stupid. You're surrounded by creeps, you spend all day hanging out with creeps, a few years go by and little by little, without even realizing it, you become a creep yourself. It's unavoidable.
(he twirls his mustache)
Yeesh, and I've grown this huge mustache. It looks stupid, doesn't it?
I've become a creep, Nanny.
Although, you know, I'm not a complete idiot. My brain still works, thank God. But I feel sort of numb. I don't want any-thing, I don't need anything, I don't love anybody... well, you.
I love you.
(he kisses her on the head)
I had a Nanny just like you when I was a boy.
MARINA
You should eat something.
ASTROV
No.
I was in Malitskoe during Lent... for the epidemic ... typhus ...and the peasants were lying side by side in these little cabins, almost on top of each other ... I mean, the filth, the stench, the air was filled with smoke, cows were lying on the floor right next to people... pigs, too... I worked all day, I didn't sit down once, didn't eat or drink, and when I finally get home they don't let me go to sleep ... there's been an accident... they bring me this switchman from the railroad, I put him on the table so I can operate... and then he up and dies on me under chloroform. And just when I didn't need it, these emotions started flooding in, and ... this ... this thought just kind of nipped at my conscience.
The thought that maybe, just maybe, I had intentionally killed him.
Pause
I sat down—I closed my eyes—like this—and I thought: those who live one or two hundred years after us, the people for whom we—we—we clear the road, will they say nice things about us? Nanny, they won't even remember!
MARINA
People won't remember, but God will.
ASTROV
Ha.
Thank you. Well said.
Enter Voinitsky, walking out of the house. He's just taken a nap and he looks kind of crumpled. He takes a seat on a bench and adjusts his dandyish necktie.
VOINITSKY
Yep.
Pause.
VOINITSKY
...Yes
ASTROV
Sleep well?
VOINITSKY He yawns.
Oh yes, very.
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There were five major productions of Uncle Vanya between 2020 and 2024, and countless more regional productions. The play has been staged and restaged many times. Some of the recent productions have involved new translations and adaptations, but the changes are generally minor, with the characters and their interactions remaining true to the original.
Actors, directors, translators talk about Uncle Vanya.
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