Uncle Vanya

But it is the first one I could not stop watching, since it was on PBS Great Performances I had time to look up the play, inject a little understanding into why it is still around and companies keep producing it, who the actors were otherwise if I had been in the theater I may not have stayed awake until the end; I often hate to see the ends of things for some reason. The actors were great and for the first time I understood what was going on; honestly there was not a character I could not feel empathy for; these lives we live. I heartily recommend you turn it on, put on 'closed captioning if you need to and listen to their story and their lives; ahh, aching for somebody who gives you nothing back...we humans.

This is a recorded stage production of "Uncle Vanya". I think the acting is good, and the production does take me to a distant time in a rural place. The finale is captivating. I enjoyed watching it.

The most beautiful Uncle Vanya I've seen in my life, with state-of-the-art performances by all the entire cast of Harold Pinter Theatre, all simply amazing, especially the great actress, and so adorable, Aimee Lou Wood as Sonya, and the great Toby Jones as Vanya.

Striking setting, acting as good as anything I've seen. Up to now I've seen Toby Jones mostly in humorous roles; now I understand why he commands such respect as an actor. (I was surprised that he managed to get in a word I've never seen in Chekhov.)

Well I nearly fell of my 4x4. This film version of the stage play Uncle Vanya was rather good. It starts off slowly and like a lot of Chekhov plays, there are people talking about their existence in rural Russia. It heats up when Professor Serebryakov (Roger Allam) decides he wants to sell the estate even though it actually belongs to his daughter from his first marriage. This incident causes Vanya (Toby Jones) to explode with rage. Allam makes Serebryakov an aloof selfish know it all. I wonder if he realised how close he was to lose his much younger second wife Yelena (Rosalind Eleazar) to the visiting Doctor Astrov (Richard Armitage.) Good performances from Aimee Lou Wood. She plays young Sonya who with Uncle Vanya toils the estate so her father can have good standard of living in the city. She also has the hots for Dotoe Astrov but he prefers Sonya's stepmother. Toby Jones comes to his own when he rages about his existence and what could had been in the later acts. With a brother in law like Professor Serebryakov. No wonder Vanya wanted to end it all.

I am so pleased that this was filmed and shown in the US. While it is always my preference to be in the room for live theatre, there is no way I would have gotten to see this even if there hadn't been a global pandemic. I can't speak to whether it was a typical performance of Chekhov, but I very much enjoyed the acting (no surprise that Richard Armitage and Toby Jones were excellent and I learned a few new names to watch for).

Not familiar with Chekov and unlike those above who are, I couldn't care less what setting/culture this was set in. But I can see why he was one of Russias favorite sons - it seems all the characters whine about their lives continually. Might have once thrilled Russian peasants (or at least spoke to them), who wants to hear this nowadays?

I am not familiar with Chekhov's work so this review is written from an unbiased perspective. Uncle Vanya had a strangely autobiographical feel to it, and the three main characters, were all strong male leads, with Uncle Vanya as the one male in the group with the strongest grievances. I think it is a play that might have benefitted from a stronger conclusion, it all felt flat at the end. When it comes to classics, no one does it quite like the BBC. You end up liking their version more than the original work. Having said that, it was beautifully acted and directed, with Toby edging it slightly in the acting stakes.

You have to work at it to screw Checkhov and though Conor McPherson does his best the actors remain loyal to Checkhov and the David Mamet adaptation coupled with Louis Malle's direction is still the movie version to beat. Although the smart money says The Cherry Orchard is Checkov's piece de resistance I have always had a soft spot for Vanya and this new version weighing in at two and a half hours does nothing to make me change my mind. Filming live performances in a theatre has come a long way since Richard Burton's Hamlet and this is a triumph of the genre.

I watched in the US thanks to a facebook friend posting a link. I was totally surprised at how very well done it was. I would buy a dvd as I think it will go on to be a classic. I hope it gets distributed and shown in the US, as I would love to see it in a movie theater. I actually have read several Chekov stories, so he is not new to me, but Uncle Vanya was! Well done folks! We can count on the Brits for excellent programming.