Theater Review: Toby Jones, Richard Armitage, Rosalind Eleazar and Ciaran Hinds in Conor McPherson's brilliant, buoyantly accessible new adaptation of Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya'
Arguably the most difficult aspect of presenting Chekhov is finding the tonal balance in his tragicomedy. The characters' navel-gazing self-pity can be so demanding that sometimes you have to resist the urge to jump on stage and give them a good slap.
There are immediate laughs, appropriately at the expense of middle-aged men obsessed with their age.
Jones' performance here brings to mind the late, great Leonard Rossiter, particularly Rossiter's sitcom mode: the acerbic intelligence, the wiliness, the snivelling ingratiation. And some of McPherson's dialogue for Vanya, in particular, has the immediacy of sitcom, as when he describes Serebryakov as "a knobbly old croaker" and whirls around the room in vitriolic complaint.
However, these larks are quickly followed by tender pathos, as the gulf in affection between Astrov and the lovesick Sonya is made painfully apparent. And Chekhov's characters are as lost, disappointed, frustrated, lovelorn and downright depressed as ever — the country folk bitter at variously wasted lives, Yelena trapped with a much older husband she doesn't love.
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