Uncle Vanya (2020)
10/10
This performance and production is absolutely insane.
8 October 2023
A 2020 British adaptation of Anton Chekhov's play of the same name.

Ian Rickson's production of Dyadya Vanya was cut short due to quarantine in the final weeks of its run.

The play was hugely popular at the time and this was truly unfortunate for both the production and the audience.

He then collaborated with director Ross MacGibbon to not only recreate the original play, but also reinterpret it in a dazzling way.

This version is not stage-to-home like other National Theater Live events.

The entire theater play has been recreated.

At the beginning of the adaptation of Chekhov's 1899 play, the director makes us watch all the actors come to the location with their masks and change their costumes/personas.

Our venue is the Harold Pinter Theatre, which production designer Rae Smith has crafted so successfully that she can teleport us from 2019 London to 1890s Russia in a split second.

Rae Smith, who also prepared the costume design herself, even managed to portray autumn in Russia in the nineteenth century with the artificial light shining through the glass.

Richard Armitage as Astrov Anna Calder-Marshall reprises her role as Nana.

But of course all eyes are looking for Toby Jones.

In the morning of that night, TJ fascinates with his character Vanya, who has a personality somewhere between the now-recovered Ebenezer Scrooge and the grumpy Truman Capote, from the moment he gets up from the couch until the curtain darkens.

When it comes to theatre, Anglo-Saxons are the best people in the world.

As someone who has read this play many times, watched it on Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and State stages, performed it at the German High School when I was a student, and watched 5 TV and Cinema versions, this is an adaptation that erases all these performances from my mind.
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