Most of us expect a heart-wrenching journey of loneliness and desperation when we look to the great Russian masters, but rarely do we get to enjoy ourselves—much less laugh out loud—along the way. "Uncle Vanya," the latest work mounted by Court Theatre at the
Museum of Contemporary Art, delivers a boisterous and revitalized presentation of Anton Chekov's classic tale that both tugs the heart strings and tickles the funny bone.
"Uncle Vanya" centers around Vanya and his sweet niece Sonya, who have spent their lives toiling on a country estate to support Sonya's father, a professor. When the aging professor and his young wife spend a summer at the estate, Vanya realizes that he's labored and sacrificed so many years for a man who's more jerk than genius.
As part of his aim to stage a "vibrant, hot, [and] extroverted" production, director Charles Newell invited Chicago architect Leigh Breslau (of Skidmore, Ownings & Merill) to design the set. The result is a sculptural tri-level tree house made of steel and wood that, upon first glance, seems exactly what one would not imagine of rural Russia in the 1800s.
Indeed, in the play notes, Breslau cites a desire to mirror the cold, tectonic theater space in the MCA while using the Tatlin Tower, a twisting, teetering ode to the Bolshevik Revolution that was imagined but never built, as a source of inspiration. An onstage labyrinth of staircases, platforms and cool, curving metal is made more expansive and frenetic by the actors' use of theater aisles, audience exits and orchestra pit railings. The set becomes both a metaphor for the claustrophobic hamster wheel in which the family must coexist and a jungle gym on which to express their love, frustration, rage and angst.
Rarely will one see such vitality (or leaping or sprinting or bounding) in a Russian classic. Certainly one would be hard-pressed to find another which turns the monologues of its characters into microphone-wielding confessions aimed straight at the audience. Even in this production, which looks upon Chekov's work with fresh eyes, one feels as if goosed the first time the microphone is held.
Kevin Gudahl, as Vanya, delivers mid-life, muffled desperation at its absolute finest, while much could be said of the spunky, sincere Sonya performed by Elizabeth Ledo. But here even the smaller characters delight, with a sigh from Penny Slusher, as Marina, yielding one of the deepest laughs of the evening.
Echoing the artistic tremors the play originally caused when it premiered in 1899, Newell's production of "Uncle Vanya" picks the play up by its edges and shakes loose accumulated conventions, presenting a refreshing romp through well-traveled terrain.
"Uncle Vanya," presented by Court Theatre, is at the Museum of Contemporary Art through February 11. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 3 & 8 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 & 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $28-$54. For more information visit http://www.courttheatre.org.
