Sonya and her uncle Vanya have devoted their lives to managing the family farm in isolation, but when her celebrated, ailing father and his charismatic wife move in, their lives are upended. In the heat of the summer, the wrong people fall in love, desires and resentments erupt, and the family is forced to reckon with the ghosts of their unlived lives.
Director Lila Neugebauer (The Waverly Gallery, The Wolves) and playwright Heidi Schreck (What the Constitution Means to Me) collaborate on the premiere of this Lincoln Center Theater production of UNCLE VANYA, which pairs Anton Chekhov's enduring masterpiece with one of America's most celebrated contemporary playwrights in a strikingly immediate new translation.
It’s Chekhov 101 to say his characters inhabit separate worlds that rarely converge. All those rueful doctors, vain landowners, stoic laborers, and pretentious artists jabber across the samovar without really connecting or changing. Sure, they level pistols at each other (and themselves) or profess undying love, but such flashes of passion smack of solipsistic play-acting. Therein lies the comedy dusted with melancholy. Still, if Chekhov’s people are not in the same play, you hope the actors inhabiting them will be. Such is not really the case in Lincoln Center Theater’s starry but arid Uncle Vanya, staged with noncommittal chill by Lila Neugebauer.
The Lincoln Center “Uncle Vanya,” which is the 11th production of the play on Broadway, doesn’t completely solve the central difficulties of staging it. The production still requires patience; there’s no concession to the Tik-Tok generation. And while Schreck’s translation does bring out the humor, and gets rid of the stuffiness, it introduces potential problems of its own. Still, under Lila Neugebauer’s direction, the performances of the nine-member cast do click often enough to reward those of us who are patient.
Digital Lottery:
Price: $48
Where: http://LCTlottery.com.
When: Beginning at 12:01am EST the day before the performance.
Limit: Two per customer
Information: Winners will be chosen at random at 10:00am and at 3:00pm the day before the performance.
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Roundabout Revival Broadway |
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London Revival at Theatre Royal Haymarket West End |
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Broadway Revival Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2024 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play | Marin Ireland |
2024 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Lighting Design of a Play | Stacey Derosier |
2024 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Musical | Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club |
2024 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | Uncle Vanya |
2024 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance | Steve Carell |
2024 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance | Willam Jackson Harper |
2024 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Direction of a Play | Lila Neugebauer |
2024 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | Uncle Vanya |
2024 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play | William Jackson Harper |
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