Here’s something many directors forget about Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya.”
The classic 1899 drama about Russian sad-sacks can be very funny.
“It’s not a tragedy,” said Roy Fluhrer, who is directing the show for the Warehouse Theatre.
“There’s a lot of comedy in the play, and you’ll see it,” he said.
“Uncle Vanya” opens at the Warehouse on Friday, Jan. 29 for 14 performances through Feb. 20.
The play centers on a professor who returns to his countryside home with his new, younger wife. His desire to sell the old house creates an uproar among his relatives, forcing everyone to consider their former aspirations and dashed hopes.
“It’s provincial Russia,” Fluhrer said. “It’s banal, it’s boring. People don’t know what to do with themselves. Their lives are falling apart.
“But Chekhov did not want the play to be performed tragically,” Fluhrer added. “It was not to be played solemn-faced, with characters stumbling around with ennui.”
Read more of this Greenville Online Review from Paul Hyde HERE.
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