Uncle Vanya – homo sapiens has not YET failed!

We have to admit that we are failing. But homo sapiens has not yet failed. (Greta Thunberg)

Best moments (and worst!)

My single favourite moment of the whole play was actually just a MOMENT – which I remember to have read and liked but so suddenly understood in its caustic irony that I made a loud noise. It was the moment when Professor Serebryakov announces that he might write a treatise about how people should live their lives. What!!!??? How can anybody SEE all these people in their utter misery and not want to cry but sit down and write a treatise???

Which is what I am doing right now – ummmh??? But it is not my intention to write a treatise, it is just the only thing I can do “about it”. I HAVE to write so as not to lose some of my favourite theatre moments ever. I remember that I panicked a bit because, immediately after the show, I was looking for my favourite moment when I READ the play, which I knew I had seen and found that it played out as I had imagined – just infinitely better. And I couldn’t remember what it was! (Of course I found it again …)

I certainly loved THIS moment because it turned out to be so analytic – but the kind of analysis I only find in the theatre and very rarely in films. That I suddenly feel as if I understand everything because understanding feels like barfing my guts. Therefore explaining WHAT I understood isn’t really the point, but the moment certainly contained this synopsis of what I had seen. At least as long as I was in the theatre, I totally was with Chekhov in his analysis about what it entails to be human and alive, how we talk about everything and realize nothing … And even that - to maybe find out how we should live? - we need to understand UNHAPPINESS.

This time I won’t proceed from worst to best but roughly in order of the performance. But first I need to take up a basic issue about the text. I already wrote that “rewriting” the play proved to be a good thing. Not that I understood all the changes I noticed, or approved of them. More often than once I felt as if the text had lost its bite, but it was mostly compensated by the feeling that the actors played “it” anyway. Most of what wasn’t explicit anymore just became part of the big SUBTEXT that I felt to be about ninety percent of this play. For example, they skipped most of the great self-analysis where Dr Astrov is concerned. Therefore some of my favourite bits of this character were sacrificed, as him saying explicitly that he cannot love anymore, or – when he is speaking to Sonya (!) about Yelena: “But that wouldn’t be love, would it?” Or – talking with Yelena about Sonya - that there would have been a time when he might have considered it (= marrying her), but not anymore. In this production he just says that he cannot FEEL anything anymore and – impatiently: “It is too LATE!” And that says it all! - I was sorry to lose the self-analysis, especially in the beginning, but I also noticed that self-analysis is already a big step BEYOND suffering and was easily convinced that it would have felt wrong to dwell on it. To concentrate on the SUFFERING AND DESPAIR proved so much more efficient.

There were other bits I missed, painfully even, but the general direction into which the text had been developed was so right because it was cleansed of everything that would have made it cumbersome and intricate and purely intellectual, so that the actors had a text where feelings might “run” smoothly. This straightforwardness and “permeability” was taken up in the stage setting – which was simple and practical, but beautiful and poetic with the light and the big glass screen through which we could see the TREES outside. Most important, it didn’t contain anything to remind us that this was Chekhov (= 19^th century!). And this was also the most important thing about the text: that it was developed in a direction that made it feel entirely CONTEMPORARY. This is probably the single most important and best thing to be said about the production: that it FELT so naturally timeless - without any obvious “updates”! - that “we” never perceive that historic screen between us and the characters but have this immediate access and communication with OUR OWN feelings.

My worst moment I have fortunately already dealt with. It was the first “scene” (there are no “scenes”, so rather first entry of the first act) – until the moment Vanya awakes from his nap and immediately starts bitching. Then we finally get a bit of entertainment. It cannot have been REMOTELY as long as I remember it … 😞 As I already wrote: I got over it, but, for the time being, I was really relieved to have somebody else to look at.

I remember now that I wasn’t that happy with Vanya in the beginning. I enjoyed the bitching but didn’t fully understand it yet, and only looking back I can appreciate how efficiently Toby Jones set me right about his character. In my book of literary prejudices Vanya already had an entry before I even started reading – basically as a PATHETIC character. Somebody not to be taken too seriously. And - even though I thought I had! - I hadn’t really rewritten that entry. So, Toby Jones took that off my hands – otherwise the play wouldn’t have worked! – In fact, if I don’t take somebody too seriously I don’t really LISTEN to them, and – one thing I already noticed when I realized he would play Vanya - Toby Jones is one of these actors who always makes me look, and listen. And when I am really listening I immediately get the impression that Vanya is really intelligent – so, that he might have been a Dostoevsky or what not is not ENTIRELY a hyperbole! He can also be genuinely funny, and - as I found later, mostly in his exchange with Yelena - he is compassionate and socially competent. And all this is really important to pick up for this play to work because it is essential that his pathetic behaviour in the third act is not an expression of who he is but of his acute suffering and despair – and the lack of means to express himself “appropriately”. Quite like the bitching – that gets GENUINELY annoying, not just for the characters on the stage! – must be understood as self-preservation and pain management. Even if we decide that Vanya is a disagreeable person, we CANNOT fail to understand why.

Here is a good place to remember the two “big” moments of Telegin – which actually became more of a favourite than I would have thought because they were so surprising. Yes, there were two! Almost right at the beginning when he stands up for himself in front of Yelena – who cannot even remember his name though she sees him every day – and then the one where he is telling the story of his life. I liked them so much because they are such a great example of how infinitely deeper Connor McPherson understood Chekhov than I did – even though I had already been on the right track. Checkhov took kindness and compassion – as a tribute to EVERY proper human being – REALLY seriously.

In fact, I realize now that almost the whole play consists of favourite moments! (Which is already enough to justify my compulsive writing! 😉) One of my favourite features was the way Vanya and Yelena connected. It is tragic, but they COULD have been really comfortable with each other – and a comfort to each other – if Vanya didn’t desire her. I think HE offers her genuine compassion and friendship, and partially grants her relief from the inhuman boredom. And she appreciates it and is grateful for it – until he oversteps a boundary. Then she resolutely pushes him back, and he knows anyway that he will never get what he wants. Nonetheless SHE is bound to make him suffer - without intending to! – and HE annoys and vexes her. It is genuinely sad because there is such potential of kindness and understanding in their relationship that can only come out when it is played. They could be so comfortable with each other, and make one another’s lives better – except they CAN’T!

There is an easy transition here to my absolute favourite “scene” because the same dynamics are played out there between Dr Astrov and Sonya condensed into one brief moment. It is so beautiful because it is something that occurs ACCIDENTIALLY, as naturally as these moments occur in real life – and turns out as elusive.  In fact, I had Chekhov down as “master of the elusive”, but I didn’t really know what I meant until I saw this.  Another one of these moments where the actors played purely “subtext”. It might as well have been my most beautiful single theatre moment ever. It certainly was the saddest. There is a moment where both their feelings are completely laid open to each other. There IS intense communication, but the meaning of it is completely different for both of them because, as Sonya is in love with him, HER feelings are entirely about him – whereas the feelings she awakes in him are entirely about him as well. Which doesn’t mean that he is not infinitely grateful for the relief he gets, but it is not “personal”. It is kind of painful to see how just taking the edge off suffering can be such a big thing. As I read it, this scene is sufficient to explain that they could never have been an item. In my opinion, it is so sad because – if Sonya didn’t desire him so much, and if he, deep down, wasn’t such a macho arsehole - they COULD have been such good FRIENDS! With all their boundedness and imperfections they are both such substantial and genuinely beautiful human beings, and COULD have helped one another infinitely to make their lives better.

There is a transition again to the second worst moment … Good news is: there were actually only TWO, the rest was infinitely good. (I think with the exception of the nightly scene with Professor Serebryakov that turned out a bit lame, but this wasn’t really that important.) It was the moment where Dr Astrov says that a woman can only be a man’s friend AFTER she has been his mistress. (👎👎👎!!!) I think I cannot be much mistaken about the fact that Richard Armitage liked it as little as I did and wasn’t entirely sure about how to play this – to his credit! But it is a compliment to the validity of the decisions the director had taken that this stood out like a sore spot. Nonetheless I grudgingly approved of the decision not to sacrifice it because – especially in correspondence with the “male bonding scene” later -  it is so constructive to what happens between men and women – or doesn’t happen, for example between Sonya and Dr Astrov. It is just that it is such a 19^th century way of looking at something that is STILL there in the relationships between the sexes – if we like it or not! – and will be in the foreseeable future as it has probably been the same since we were cavemen (or – women).

I loved the male bonding – immediately followed by the female bonding between Yelena and Sonya. (Like almost everybody they HAVE a relationship that is not without potential, but they also have a serious issue – which, in this case, gets settled entirely!) I realize that I loved it because they took this opportunity to bring out the division of the world in male and female – the “beauty” of it as well as the way it becomes a source of (needless) suffering. And here is the slot for the million pound question why men always think that attractive women are trying to ensnare them. I know it is really difficult (for women!) to take this seriously, but please take a deep breath and try because it is important! Men actually CANNOT HELP thinking this because it is exactly what HAPPENS to them when they see an attractive woman. She doesn’t really have to DO anything – and this was the thing I loved most about Rosalind Eleazar’s mature acting: that she made it so abundantly clear that Yelena DOESN’T do anything. And, as I had been so curious about how it would play out on the stage that Dr Astrov suddenly proposes sex to her, I watched closely what is going on between these two people beforehand – and was delighted. Richard Armitage playing subtext was a sight for sore eyes!

The great thing is that, in this case, I have actual proof that “men” probably wouldn’t agree with me here. The only review about the play I have read because it was linked by “London Theatre” was written by a man. (And it reminded me why I am not in the habit of reading reviews. The only awake wrong expectations and cause irritation – even when they are good, which this one was. My own eyes and ears, and feelings, are just such an infinitely better instrument FOR ME to assess what is actually going on on the stage.)  And he wrote that Yelena is “madly in love” with Astrov. Sorry but – bollocks!!! I do this very seldom because I don’t feel my authority AS A WOMAN to be that great, but in this case it cannot be helped. Clearly: male projection! The actress was so totally clear about everything Yelena is feeling – which I admired particulary because she didn’t DO much. And there is no indication – ever! - of Yelena being in LOVE with Dr Astrov - as there isn’t in the text either! - though she certainly finds him fascinating. And of course she would want to sleep with him! But that wouldn’t be love, would it?

Oh! I like it how I have managed to “turn” this – or rather how THEY did, making this play feel so much more contemporary in an unobtrusive way than could ever be achieved by any obvious “uptdates”. Waking this morning, I remembered with pleasure the beautiful stage setting – and how “contextual” it had been. It was not really a ROOM where people belong in and are kind of stuck – as I unconsciously thought it had to be like in Chekhov. But I was wrong. It was more like a state of being that everybody shares – or rather everybody who is still alive: transitional, slightly messy and kind of OPEN. A space that invites us to put OUR OWN categories into question. In fact, all this proves that “Chekhov” ACTUALLY has done something to the human stuff within me, that it actually got refined and shifted about a bit. And this is an amazing thing to observe! I did before, but never so explicitly, and it is something that especially THEATRE does to me so that it is not quite the same as my other fictional experiences. I noticed before that I cannot distance myself from the text in the same way, and this time I noticed that this is because I don’t WANT to. I actually enjoy it when they are messing with me – take my own thoughts and feelings so seriously, and even set me straight in this way. Amazing …

In fact, I never minded their setting me straight, especially not in this case. The toughest moment for me reading it had been when Dr Astrov proposes sex to Yelena in a way that I found offensive. That was my moment of thinking: “What an arsehole!” (Which is something "we" don't WANT to think - especially women!) For Claudia it was another moment, but we both ultimately came to this conclusion – which, if I am not much mistaken, a man would never have come to. And, AFTER I had seen it, I felt differently myself – which came up in our discussion when I always said: “Yes, but I can understand HIM as well …” One reason for this was that I felt more lenient when I realized that Yelena doesn’t get hurt BECAUSE of his insensitive behaviour. As she is so resilient and competent in dealing with men, it doesn’t even put her in an awkward and disagreeable position. Nonetheless, he hurts her UNCONSIOUSLY – a lot! - by opening the wound of her own hopelessly misery.

And THIS was the single best thing about this production for me. As they clearly took up every opportunity of showing how everybody hurts everybody else, taking great care at the same time not to expose anybody as an “arsehole”, they so clearly brought it out that “we” mostly don’t hurt others intentionally  - because we sadistically enjoy it to lash out at other people - but unintentionally because of OUR OWN inadequacies, our own boundedness, our own misery. We CANNOT HELP hurting one another, and this will always be so, as long as we are still alive and suffering ourselves.

That grates because I have actually become compulsive about AVOIDING to make other people feel bad, always being so careful and polite and accommodating so that they wouldn’t be tempted to make me suffer in return. So - even though I am feeling very much alive a the moment - in Chekhov’s book I might already be dead? Well, dealing with something like this, at least I am picking up signs of life. Yesterday, discussing the show with Claudia another time, I noticed something very strange. When we took up the issue again yesterday if marriage with Sonya would have been a way out of his misery for Dr Astrov, she explained patiently what she meant, and I just thought: I can’t ARGUE with that! But all this time there was this FEELING contradicting her so strongly which I felt DISTINCTLY as some kind of pressure right beneath my COLLARBONES! Never noticed that I had feelings THERE! (Also an indication that it might be interesting to notice my “body feelings” more when I am reading?) And now I can explain my resistance, and why I agreed so much with Chekhov – as I think I do! - and what the ultimate “timelessness” was that made me like this show so much. It is because the only hope I can still see is not in settling things, but in openness and transition, and change. That must be the reason why I liked the speech by Greta Thunberg so much – and probably why I can find any hope AT ALL in “Chekhov” …

I understand now why, reading it beforehand, I loved the ending – especially one bit that could have turned out in a number of ways: when Dr Astrov is reaching out to Vanya telling him that there is no hope for BOTH of them. It might have turned out sarcastic – which would have been entirely wrong. I think I understood the play rather well already – implicitly – or had gone about ten percent of the journey they had taken when I was reading it. So I was totally pleased with where “we” arrived. I had felt this moment to be one of GENUINELY reaching out, and it was. Dr Astrov is offering the only thing he CAN offer to “bring him back to life”: his own misery. There is no prospect of hope he can offer him, no comfort. The only thing he can show him is his own beating human heart …

I don’t even think that it will help. The way Vanya is feeling at the end, the only way of helping him would probably be what Dr Astrov has denied him: medicide. Nonetheless – “we” cannot actually stop doing this. Even FOR OUR OWN GOOD, I think, we cannot stop TRYING …

Uncle Vanya – a treatise about how we should NOT live our lives …

Preliminaries and characters

Mission accomplished! We actually have been there and have seen it AND it was great! Though actually quite heartbreaking. But this might even be the best that can be said about it.

I’ll try and refrain from jumping to conclusions right away but register impressions and emotions. Starting with the WORST that happened and progressing towards the BEST – a great method of managing one’s feelings that one of my nephews was taught by his parents and which I have emulated ever since. 

There were exactly two events right at the beginning that distressed  - and stressed - me. The first began to happen already before the curtain was raised, when I was comfortably seated in the tiny, tiny VIP lounge with my glass of champagne … (We bought the weird VIP tickets because we wanted the great seats, and there wasn’t much of an additional expense, but it turned out to be great with the privacy and the champagne and, of course, no “important person” in sight!) … recovering from my amazement that we actually made it and running through the programme, and when I noticed that the director had probably completely rewritten the text so that I wouldn’t see the version I had read and found so interesting. I was right. (But it actually turned out to be a good thing …)

In the beginning, though, it was part of my utter disappointment when the curtain was raised and I saw Richard Armitage on the stage – a moment I had been so looking forward to – and I think even BEFORE he said anything I had a premonition that he was going to bore me. Wait a second – THIS IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! I am actually here now, in THIS theatre, seeing THIS play, with RICHARD ARMITAGE before me on the stage, and he is BORING me … 😢😢😢!!! He even went on boring me for some time into the first act AND I had a tough time adjusting to the strange text and these characters feeling slightly wrong because of it … Disaster!!!

BUT … and I admit I am rather proud of this – I actually have learned two important things by now. The first: When something is going so wrong with a text that should turn out amazing, and under circumstances like these – where there are much cleverer people than me dealing with it – then it is most probably ME who is wrong. And I noticed that I have finally learned to TRUST Richard Armitage.   

Though, maybe, I just thought fatalistically that I had to give it a go now that I was here and keep my eyes (and ears) peeled – and my heart open. As there is this thing about SURPRISES: They are NOT going to be what I expected.

Whatever I did, it worked. It would never have worked, though, without him recovering from whatever had been wrong in the beginning. (He clearly wasn’t really “in character”.) Whereas Vanya correctly turned out as the centre of this unequalled “vortex” of silent tragedy, Dr Astrov is something like the beating human heart of the play. (Or, more precisely, about one half of it …) Which, I believe, Richard Armitage understood as I never could have understood it myself – though I started out in this direction when I was reading the play. And took his responsibility as seriously as he usually does.

For the time being, though, I was rather relieved to see the other actors enter the stage and claim my attention. And, this time, I’ll take the occasion and say something about EVERY character on this stage because it actually is important in this case. One more preliminary thing, though, before I start on this. The second best thing about this special Chekhov experience was something outside the theatre. It was that the two of us went there together, saw it at the same time, both loved it, and were able to synchronize our reading of it. And – for the first time ever! – I was CERTAIN that somebody else had seen the same play I had. Of course, as we are different people, we FELT differently about a number of issues, but the main thing that happened was basically the same. And WHAT happened to us, and the way it happened, was the BEST thing about this production, and I cannot help feeling that this is the greatest compliment that it could ever get.

Though there are of course characters that are more central to the “vortex” of the play – as, of course, Vanya, then Dr Astrov, and, as we both felt, in this production Sonya even more than Yelena who also belongs to this “inner circle” – the great thing about this vortex is that, once somebody has entered the social cluster, they become instantly a part of it and important in their own way. Like people in real life creating a social aura and beginning to produce projections and “social stuff” for other people in an incredibly complex way. This is what I came to find endlessly fascinating as soon as the Chekhov vortex began to pick up steam on the stage. And I believe that this must be so for actors as well, at least for those who understand stage acting in this way (=things HAPPENING on a stage), but also a real challenge difficult to take up anew on every single performance. Because you have to provide for your own character, and get everything exactly right, and then always keep this openness for multiple things going on on the stage. I never noticed before the complexity it requires for the actors to come with ALL that the character is carrying beforehand – in this case: all these single cages of misery! – on the stage and then enter with it into these multiple inter-personal proceedings. I find it really interesting now that we both noticed that exactness of timing, or of what exactly has to happen when and where, hadn’t been a priority in staging this play. I missed it a bit because I had noticed the importance of timing in Chekhov before, as I missed the “beat”, and the pegs I had used when I read it, so that I found the text wanting in exactness. But I actually think now that it is better to give the actors this bit of personal space to move around in order to make them feel better and to keep the vortex so alive.

So, now: characters, from WORST to BEST. It was certainly the first play where there were as many actors on the stage that I knew as actors I had never seen before. And there were only two of them I didn’t like: Anna Calder-Marshall playing Nana, and Dearbhla Molloy playing Mrs Voinitsky – which didn’t hurt much because she is isolated from the other characters from the start. They even gave her more than is in the play – or than I could read out of it. As - if she had had the freedom! - she might have taken the opportunity and become the same kind of conceited and ultimately pointless intellectual as the professor whom everything that is genuinely human doesn’t touch or concern. And, in my opinion, they considerably stressed the destructive influence she had on her son. Because of this, Vanya being annoyed and sarcastic with her makes even more sense. So, though I didn’t like her playing because she was basically just a “suffragette” clichée, she was “structurally” okay. And, even though I would have probably made her more of an annoying busybody, her sitting straight up and still as if she was already dead probably made more sense. There are definitely people in this play that are already dead, or dying – which might not even be the worst position in “Chekhov” because alive “in there” basically means: still able to suffer (and to make other people suffer.) Right at the end, Vanya appears like her. Still like stone and not really reacting to anybody or anything. It feels as if he will never recover and start bitching again – and “we” are actually feeling SORRY about it!

The issue I had with Anna Calder-Marshall as Nana is more serious. As far as I can see, the character has exactly two social features (and functions) that have to be there – and which are both connected with WHO she is. For one, she is the person who holds a mirror up for everybody, and can tell the truth about them to everybody’s face because nobody would mind her. She is just the NANNY – whom nobody ever took seriously but whom they turned to nonetheless since they were children. She cannot offend because she has no power to hurt. Right in the beginning, telling Dr Astrov that he HAD BEEN young and good-looking at the time created a lot of mirth. So, everybody in the audience can make up their mind about if he still is – as he himself obviously thinks he is! It is one of these special sarcastic moments that “Chekhov” is so full of, and this feature is certainly one the actress liked to play and make as much of as possible.

But the most important feature Nana provides is that she can offer comfort and affection to ANYBODY – as she has done to the children she raised, always providing them with what they needed, soothing them when they were ill and unhappy. And EVERYBODY is able to take that from her. This easy social glue I missed already in the first scene with Astrov – and, I think, it was one of the reasons why it turned out so unsatisfactory for me. In “Chekhov” characters lack the possibility to relate directly to the audience, they need another character to make their misery available to us. (At one point I remember, Yelena has a short monologue which struck me as totally weird when I saw it on the stage … Quite like when I witness people talking to themselves in real life.) I missed it worse in the scene where she gets the professor to go to bed – and takes him off the other’s hands. Maybe the director didn’t want it there because if this scene between the two of them is fully played out it shows Serebryakov as a genuine human being. As the basis of our compassionate behaviour are in fact mirror neurons that make us able to project onto others what we would be feeling OURSELVES in a similar position, reacting to kindness and being moved by it is a basic form of humanity – which, for example, Mrs Voinitsky totally lacks. Maybe he didn’t want it because it might have been too much social complexity. Probably Serebryakov SHOULDN’T BE anything else but the ageing tyrant whom everybody in the house is dependant on.

This was also something I was sorry about because I had this moment as well, beforehand, that Claudia described: “I couldn’t believe it, I’ll see Ciáran Hinds LIVE on stage.” And then it wasn’t as special as it might have been. I am sure he did EXACTLY what was expected of him. He always struck me as an actor whom you just have to “switch on” and he will deliver whatever is required in high definition. It isn’t my favourite kind of actor, but probably the most “useful” kind. And I enjoyed every minute of everything I saw him play. I think it was in the interest of the production that he played Serebryakov extremely subdued, careful not to make us care for him or raise our compassion – though not too inhuman either. I don’t know if the director was right about this – I tend to think not! – but there is certainly enough unhappiness for us to deal with already. And Serebryakov is also one of the people who have no “chemistry” anymore with any of the others. Chemistry is messy, in real life, but it is also conducive to life GOING ON. Clearly Serebryakov is not dead yet as he is still suffering, but he is certainly dying.

Then – before I come to the people still alive AND suffering - there is Peter Wight as Telegin. Who also happens to be an actor I know rather well and was pleasantly surprised to encounter as a member of the cast. He is even in my blog already – as he played Polonius in the Andrew Scott Hamlet which I was really pleased with. In this case, though, I felt him basically to be a casting error. Not a bit of it HIS fault, though, but as he is somehow so “substantial” because of his physicality and his acting – though he wasn’t loud! – he is just not the right type for Telegin who – in my perception – is this “shrivelled”, pitiful, insubstantial, and disfigured man that nobody takes seriously. In this production he doesn’t turn out like this, but, because he has this exactness and utter sensitivity about what his characters are about and what they are feeling, he did exactly the right thing when it mattered. I was particularly struck by the scene where he is telling the story of his marriage and – basically – the story of his adult life. And, even though none of the characters on the stage takes him seriously, I am certain everybody in the audience did at that moment! In this way he fulfilled Chekhov’s design more completely than by being exactly what was written for him. We understand why he is the only person who has contrived to live comparatively happy IN his misery.

So, now there are four characters left competing about the first places. First, so last, uncontestedly, is Toby Jones as Vanya. His tragedy is the central vortex of the play, and he was quite obviously the best actor on that stage. There is nothing to be added to perfection. It entails, though, that there is not that much to write about. So, I’ll go with Rosalind Eleazar’s Yelena first, not because her acting was less great than the others' but because what she had to achieve was not quite as difficult. Though maybe it was, but it didn’t appear so. She struck me as one of these extremely gifted and sensitive actresses who would do instinctively right what she’d get to play. She just entered the stage and WAS Yelena as if there were never any questions raised about WHO that is. But I guess this was not so because being so entirely RIGHT about a character doesn’t come just like that. Probably a lot of it develops in the interactions with the other actors which is a big part of what she is – and mostly belongs in my next chapter. But the main thing was that she put a really STRONG woman into this character which turned out to be exactly the right thing to do. I already asked myself when I read it: She isn’t as “bad” as others would have her. In fact, she is rather competent and clever. What is MISSING? What was missing was exactly this WOMAN. And that she is so strong and so alive, and COULD be so many things, makes her not trying to break out of that cage so much more heartbreaking. The most interesting thing about her is, though, in what ways she becomes the target of male projections, and how competently she is dealing with that. It might even be the truest and clearest representation of the predicament of being utterly successful AS A WOMAN I have ever seen – and which, I think, has lost nothing of its actuality in the 21^st century. AND one that raised MY understanding and compassion. (Which is something I thought could never happen … There were three actors involved in this, so: next chapter …)

As I started with the women, I’ll stay with them, just because I know exactly what I want to write about them. The most ASTONISHING feat of acting – and one I was especially GRATEFUL for – was Aimée Lou Wood’s Sonya. (By the way: Couldn’t great actors come up with names I’d be actually able to REMEMBER???) Astonishing because she must really be almost as young as she looks and able to do something so complex and exact and utterly powerful. I could see the “seams” where this was “welded” together but I never mind that. It was one of these cases where I become aware that “natural” isn’t the HIGHEST category for me when it comes to acting. I like to see the grinding work behind it. And it is so much more obvious how this could have gone wrong. So much for “grateful”! It didn’t even hurt that the actress is beautiful and Sonya supposed to be plain because she got the physicality so right that no male human being would ever be struck by the thought of having sex with her – totally without making her ridiculous or clumsy. She is just natural, very competent in every day matters, empathic and passionate and very much ALIVE – and without the least bit of talent or inclination to make herself pleasing. It is totally obvious that SHE has to fall in love with Astrov. He is exactly the kind of man that suits her. And from our position off stage, watching her, “we” find her so endearing and humanely pleasing that we easily can get angry with Astrov for not seeing what we see – as Claudia did. Right! How can anybody not SEE a human being like this! - I didn’t (get angry) because Richard Armitage explained so well why he doesn’t that I could see through his eyes as well as mine. Her cage of misery becomes visible from every possible angle and is exactly what it “has” to be. The second half of the beating human heart that will never come together. Utter tragedy – from HER point of view!

I probably know exactly what I want to write about Richard Armitage’s Astrov too, I just don’t know how. I’ll switch and put him at the end because there is a transition to the next chapter. The worst for me to say about Toby Jone’s Vanya is that he played him so ultimately perfectly that I got to see exactly what I expected. And - strange person that I am - that dissatisfied me, at least in the beginning. I felt as if he didn't show me what is “behind” that character, just because I couldn’t find a chink in the “armour”. But I knew that this was stupid, and of course I forgot about it and watched fascinatedly how this was playing out. It doesn’t make Vanya less special that it is rather obvious what is the matter with him. His fate is the pillar the vortex is rotating about, and this pillar has to be really strong to hold all this – which it was. And, as usual, he was just a pleasure to watch with his exactness and great timing and amazing face acting that you can probably see from the last stalls and the highest balcony. When he was playing I was watching him full time. And there were a few genuinely surprising bits too, especially when he is interacting with Yelena. (Next chapter …)  

What I meant when I wrote that I have finally learned to trust Richard Armitage is that I can trust him to do WHAT I WANT. But of course he does it his own way, and as he is easily ten times more intelligent than I am, and about a hundred times more competent about the human stuff, he never ceases to surprise me with it. First of all, he was zero interested in playing the character in a way that everybody would “recognize” him and be pleased with it. He was interested in what would HAPPEN when HE would be playing the character. And, even though Toby Jones might have played Vanya so much more exactly and beautifully and “naturally” – so that there are not traces to be seen of “putting him together” - this is not the point for me. Richard Armitage will always be the actor who knows what I am looking for – because he might be looking for the same things? And, as he is so much more competent and tenacious than I am doing this, he always comes up with the most surprisingly best “answers” to my questions.  First of all, he ultimately showed me that Chekhov is really DIFFICULT. I noticed this writing about the show and my reading – which has been much more exhausting so far than most of the writing I have done. When we went for a drink after the show, Claudia said that she was looking forward to my blog, and I said that I’d probably not write anything because it would be too difficult to get it right. This answer was even more accurate than I would have thought. (Of course there is no way I am NOT writing about this but there is also no way I will ever get it right …) And this is because Chekhov requires an EXACTNESS of feeling that I don’t know how to apply to this kind of stuff - like messy human relationships or utter misery. Usually, I am just trying to stay clear of it. Richard Armitage tried not to skip a beat.

I was really pleased that it became such a major issue for him to show that Dr Astrov is a compassionate person, as I was dealing with this beforehand, reading the play. I am so pleased anyway how my “coarse” reading got infinitely refined when I saw this – but I was basically right about a few important issues. They just had a cleverer, more contemporary and mature version of it.

And he set me right about a number of issues. For example about the REASON why men always think that attractive women are trying to ensnare them. (It is actually quite simple … Next chapter!) Or about people running into a crisis. Even though he was really not good in the beginning he showed me clearly that Astrov is ALREADY in “crisis mode” when the curtain is raised. In fact, they all are. I could translate the urgency he showed me to the other characters, and it really helped to watch it the right way. The house is already on fire though we cannot yet see it burning. And this leads to “more burning” questions than if I hadn’t been already on red alert.

So, this became so long already and is still just a taste because it got incredibly more complex …