Uncle Vanya

By Anton Chekhov, directed by Lisa Weaver
Commonweal Theatre

It seems like it has been a long time since we’ve seen Commonweal’s Executive Director Hal Cropp on stage, and his portrayal of the desperate Vanya is another gem. Vanya has come to the realization that his life may have been totally wasted: he’s toiled for 25 years managing the home estate of his deceased sister, sending the proceeds to support his brother-in-law, the esteemed Professor. In fact the entire household—Vanya, Sonya, Vanya’s mother, the household staff—have lived their lives vicariously through the success of the professor. The discontent arises when the professor retires to the home estate bringing home his new young bride.

Vanya is shaken from his reverence for the professor by the reality of the professor in the day-to-day flesh. Perhaps it’s jealousy that precipitates the change: a contemporary of Vanya’s, the professor has taken nearly all the income produced by the estate to live a lavish, celebrity lifestyle, and now in retirement he has come home with a young beautiful wife (played by Amanda Davis). Vanya on the other hand has lived a frugal, dispassionate life, and with the appearance of Yeliena, his life and future seem very lonely and very celibate. Cropp is able to capture this anguish in his pronouncement that not only is the professor a whining nuisance, but his intellectual production is also void of any original thought. Cropp’s Vanya sums up his new understanding of the professor by declaring him a “lump.” (Which would work better if the professor wasn’t played by the lanky Stephen Houtz, but Houtz makes up for his stature by confirming Vanya’s assertions.)

“Lump” is a good reminder that Chekhov wrote this play as a comedy, and there is much to laugh at in this production: irony, twisted logic, childish idealism, outlandish behavior. But audiences have been reluctant to laugh because of the anguish underneath the humor. (At some points in the play, I may have been the only one laughing.) This production, while not seeming to play to the laugh lines, certainly provides ample opportunity for laughter.

The underlying pace of Uncle Vanya plods with dialog that often goes nowhere. Characters engage in irrelevant banter about tea, crops, household routines, hereditary sweat disorders—while underneath, characters are tumultuously re-evaluating their lives and finding their current paths meaningless. Each of the main characters will break out of the slow pace to make a desperate attempt to salvage some possibility of happiness. These acts seem too large, too clumsy, and uncharacteristically too passionate.

Jill Underwood as Sonya and Hal Cropp as Uncle Vanya. Photo: Commonweal

While this is the first production of Uncle Vanya I’ve seen, I expected these desperate acts to be executed clumsily, yet within the Russian reserve that runs through Checkov’s plays—I imagine this reserve as being similar to “Minnesota nice.” Yet the Commonweal’s characters scream with passion in a way that makes a Minnesota audience squirm. I left the theater thinking that the acting was too passionate for Chekhov: Jill Underwood’s Sonya, who runs the estate with staid efficiency and stability, becomes an insecure adolescent when she confesses her secret love for the doctor; mustachioed Erick Knutson abandons his medical demeanor and his life’s work of reforestation to make sexual advances to the professor’s young wife; Vanya weeps openly and often, loudly professes his anger and disillusionment to anyone who will listen, and makes his own advances on Yeliena.

While these passionate outbursts may seem out of character for Chekhov, director Lisa Weaver is presenting exactly what passionate expression might feel like to a person who has spent a lifetime avoiding passion. This exaggerated passion allows the audience to feel the internal terror a dispassionate person might experience over even the smallest expression of passion. Sometimes this internal experience moves into the surreal: Vanya’s attempt to shoot the professor seems comic rather then terrifying. Afterwards, Vanya wonders aloud if the shooting was even real: “It’s queer! Here I’ve tried to commit a murder, and yet no one arrests me, no one charges me with anything…It must mean they think I’m a madman.” (trans. Elisaveta Fen).

Come to see Uncle Vanya prepared to laugh, prepared to squirm at the un-Minnesota attempts at passion, and prepared to explore your own missed opportunities and deferred aspirations. Cropp, Underwood, Davis, and Knutson turn in powerful performances that add to the impressive body of work of the Commonweal.

Uncle Vanya plays through November 11.

Visit the Commonweal for schedules and tickets: Commonweal Theatre