My main knowledge of the Anton Chekov play Uncle Vanya is through its rehearsal and performance in the Japanese film, Drive My Car, directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi. I have always been aware of Vanya On 42nd Street (1994), a film adaptation of Vanya that reunited actors and playwrights Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn, with the French director Louis Malle, all of whom worked together on the film, My Dinner With Andre.
From what I’ve read, Gregory hosted and directed private rehearsals of Vanya with a group of actors as a way to understand the text, squatting in an abandoned theatre on 42nd Street, New York. The rehearsals were never opened to public audiences, and eventually Gregory asked Malle to make a film of their performances. In the opening sequence, the camera stands on 42nd Street and follows the actors as they arrive through the daytime New York crowds. A few people are brought into the theatre as audience members, we observe the actors talking, chatting about their work and lives, specifically Phoebe Brand and Larry Pine. Slowly the discussion segues into the text of Vanya, the actors remain the same, dressed in their contemporary outfits, but then they begin to refer to Russian names and “the estate” and “the woods”. There’s a cut and we see the audience seated in the background watching; we are already in the play. It’s a simple magic trick that speaks to the intimate yet casual approach of the movie.
The actors mainly sit around tables, or chairs and couches set up on the stage, and we often hear sirens in the distance from the street. Yet I was pulled into the text through the performances and the cinematography, the use of close-ups and lighting drawing on the shadows of the empty theatre. Recognisable faces from movies demonstrate their theatre bona fides like George Gaynes (from the Police Academy series) and Wallace Shawn as Vanya (whose voice and likeness always echoes the comedy mainstream recognition of his parts in the Princess Bride or the Toy Story movies). The character of Vanya exists as a kind of cynical clown on the side-lines in the middle of the drama, based on the sickly, older academic Professor Serebryakov (Gaynes), his younger second wife Yelena (Julianne Moore), his daughter from the first marriage Sonya (Brooke Smith, Silence of the Lambs), and the visiting Dr. Astrov (Pine, Sandy from Succession). Vanya was the brother to Serebryakov’s first wife who passed away, and he and his niece Sonya maintain the country estate for the distinguished professor, who is plagued by health issues, and his younger, bored wife. There is a love triangle between Dr. Astrov, Sonya and Yelena, and multiple disappointments are aired in this site of decay and slow ruin. The sense of regret and frustration is everywhere, particularly reckoning with getting older and being frustrated with your fruitless position in the scheme of things.
Great performances from all, particularly Shawn who subtly transforms at moments; from the close-up where he talks alone about his regrets to his eventually rage at the academic’s decision about the estate, his character deepens from our initial perception. David Mamet adapted the text and adds his recognisable staccato delivery here and there. The old text finds new life in its references to the environment and to financial matters, particularly when bonds are discussed with a “I Love NY” paper cup on the table, bringing to mind gentrification, real estate and political/powerful figures of the time and location. Available to stream on SBS On Demand at the moment. Recommended.
VHS Tracking 