{"id":672,"date":"2024-12-04T21:05:24","date_gmt":"2024-12-04T21:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/30\/?p=672"},"modified":"2024-12-22T10:53:18","modified_gmt":"2024-12-22T10:53:18","slug":"andrew-scotts-vanya-a-fusion-of-souls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/30\/andrew-scotts-vanya-a-fusion-of-souls\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Scott\u2019s Vanya<\/em>: a Fusion of Souls"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Azen Terziev<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vanya <\/em>after A. P. Chekhov in the adaptation of Simon Stephens; directed by Sam Yates; designer and co-creator, Rosanna Vize; performed by Andrew Scott.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my country, Bulgaria, the film screenings of Vanya<\/em>\u2014Andrew Scott\u2019s one man show, based on Anton Chekhov\u2019s classic Uncle Vanya<\/em>, in which he plays all the parts, became a theatrical highlight of the last season. The projections, which were part of the two major international theatre festivals in June 2024 (ITF Varna Summer and the platform \u201cWorld Theatre in Sofia\u201d www.viafest.org<\/a>) initially gained attention due to the actor\u2019s popularity from the cinema and television (Sherlock<\/em>, Fleabag<\/em>, All Of Us Strangers<\/em>), but very soon became a myth of their own. The rumors within theatre circles became agitated, and the tickets quickly sold out. I was excited to witness something, which I had rarely seen on stage lately\u2014a highly sophisticated new theatrical work, which also had something of a mass appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Andrew Scott plays every single character of Chekhov\u2019s play. In the screen version, the entire script\u2014speakers\u2019 names included\u2014runs as subtitles. Photo: Marc Brenner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Vanya<\/em> opened officially in London\u2019s West End in 2023, at the Duke of York\u2019s Theatre. It was filmed live there and was later shown in cinemas in many countries as part of the NT Live program, and currently it can be streamed online from its website. I was excited, but not surprised, when I read that in 2025 Vanya<\/em> will move again live to New York\u2019s Lucille Lortel Theatre off-Broadway for an eight-week run. On stage<\/a> and on screen<\/a>, Vanya<\/em> is a phenomenal theatrical experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The author of Vanya,<\/em> Simon Stephens, follows Chekhov\u2019s Uncle Vanya<\/em> very closely and with great respect. There are two basic changes in the new version, one external and one internal. The external change concerns the mechanics of the plot, where the action is transferred from the rural provinces of late-nineteenth-century Russia to contemporary Ireland. The text is slightly edited, the vocabulary modernized so that the dialogue seems streamlined, fast and more direct. All this turns out to be a quite effective update, as it underlines stronger the similarities between the different eras. In the beginning of the new millennium as at the turn of the nineteenth century, our human anxieties feel the same\u2014the social order is shaking, nature is being mindlessly exploited and man feels an inexplicable lack of love, of meaning, of connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the internal change, which concerns the play\u2019s characters and their relations, the major creative team (author, director, designer) have put a delicate but special emphasis on the motive of the missing dead sister. Here she is an invisible presence, a guardian-spirit from beyond. We, the audience, never see her but can feel her. The heavy body of her piano occupies the right part of the set, which is otherwise very naturalistic, except for the big white ball above the piano, which looks like the moon. Touching the piano is forbidden as all sacred objects are, and there is a scene when it surprisingly starts to play by itself. As a staging, this version of Uncle Vanya<\/em> shares something with the invocations of ghosts.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Andrew Scott as Ivan at the piano of his deceased sister. Photo: Marc Brenner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

What makes Vanya<\/em> so different and so appealing? Let\u2019s start with the obvious\u2014it is a one man show, based on a classic Chekhov play, where normally at least several good actors are needed. For Uncle Vanya<\/em>, the absolute minimum is five, since this play simply does not work on stage if the complex main characters and the subtle tensions between them are not convincingly rendered. Here the talented, mercurial and handsome Andrew Scott plays all the parts, male and female. He is the moody, aging, painfully self-conscious and sarcastic Ivan (or Vanya); he is his kind-hearted but ungainly niece Sonya; he is the charismatic neighbor doctor Michael (Ivan\u2019s friend and romantic rival). Andrew Scott gives us also the extravagant couple of the senile, self-absorbed and pompous ex-celebrity Alexander (former husband of Ivan\u2019s deceased sister, who in the play is a literary professor but here is transmuted into a once famous film director) and his ravishingly beautiful and mysterious new young wife Helena, who becomes the focal point of all male attention. The actor also splendidly portrays the three minor characters of Vanya\u2019s pretentious mother, the down-to-earth housemaid and the awkward Liam, nicknamed Crater (Waffles, in the Russian original) due to his smallpox-scarred face, who wanders unnoticed around the house like a pet.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Fondling the necklace Andrew Scott turns into beautiful Helena. Photo: Marc Brenner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In resum\u00e9, Andrew Scott plays a total of eight characters and manages to give each a distinct appearance and tone. This is amazing on its own and a real feat of acting, which can happen only in the theatre. The virtuoso actor moves swiftly from character to character without ever changing costume, with only subtle shifts in attitude and tone of voice and with an astonishingly precise economy of gesture. Ironic black sunglasses plus agitated, waving hands, and the anxious Ivan springs into life; a slow and gentle fondling of a thin necklace, and the audience is drawn into the hypnotic orbit of the beautiful Helena. The human sketches are sharp and convincing, and the timing of delivery impeccable. Andrew Scott gets right something which modern productions often overlook or miss entirely\u2014Chekhov\u2019s genius for the comical, his deep attention to the inconsistencies of human nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vanya<\/em> is very funny, but Andrew Scott gets another Chekhovian thing right\u2014it is also a sad, a genuinely sad play. Scott\u2019s true powers lie in his ability not only to outline each colorful personality but to channel the deep and overwhelming emotions and bring them to the surface of the farce, where they spread like rippling waves. Chekhov\u2019s plays confront us with a truth which goes contrary to our hopes and best intentions. They show the delusion and the busy vanity of all human ambitions\u2014no one ever gets what they want or what they believe they deserve. But what is more important in this staging is the irrationality of love and the powerful electric force-field of attraction. All the major plays by Chekhov are famously full of romantic misfires, and as a law, in them one always falls in love with someone who cannot love back. To love somebody means also to remain cold to somebody else. Love is inclusive only in the afterlife, as in Sonya\u2019s legendary final monologue which closes Uncle Vanya<\/em> with a prophetic vision of a diamond sky and hopes for the end of all suffering. It is a tricky monologue, and it is often edited out of modern productions for the dangers of its old-fashioned pathos and sentimentality, yet Andrew Scott succeeds in making it sound like the authentic conclusion. The tears are real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, when the actor cries, we spectators of his one-man show are never certain which exact character is crying\u2014is it Sonya now, or is it Vanya, or someone else? The shift from person to person is so rapid, so gentle, so fluid that there are moments when the boundaries between the different characters seem to melt away. They flicker through the actor\u2019s face and body like passing ghosts and create an electric chain of emotion, where an impulse starts in one character and swiftly moves to another one. This is the magic of Andrew Scott\u2019s acting, which makes his show so enjoyable and moving. He brings out the spiritual dimensions of Chekhov\u2019s play, in which the characters may clash, but their souls seem to vibrate, penetrate and fuse into each other. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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*<\/a>Asen Terziev<\/strong> (PhD) is an Associate Professor at the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria. His interests are in theatre theory, history and theatre management. He is the author of\u00a0 two\u00a0 books:\u00a0 Theatricality\u2014The\u00a0 Language\u00a0 of\u00a0 Performance\u00a0 <\/em>(2012)\u00a0 and\u00a0 The\u00a0 Drama\u00a0 and\u00a0 English Romanticism\u2014Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley<\/em> (2019). He has many publications (reviews, theoretical articles, interviews, translations) in various specialized editions for theatre and culture. He is a co-founder and main coordinator of the Via Fest Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9<\/strong> 2024 Asen Terziev
Critical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em>, #30, Dec. 2024
e-ISSN: 2409-7411<\/p>\n\n\n

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