Uncle Vanya

Those who come a hundred or two hundred years after us will despise us for having lived our lives so stupidly and tastelessly. Perhaps they’ll find a means to be happy.

Yesterday I went to the theatre, which is something I really enjoy: I find seeing great texts come to life just in front of me very gripping and satisfying. Theatre can be, in a way, augmented reality: the characters' lives are happening a short distance from you, in a condensed period of time and through a powerful, precise use of verbal language and physical movements. Checkhov's Uncle Vanya is a very good example of these qualities. Having read about how revolutionary his approach to play writing was, I had long wanted to watch a play based on one of his texts, and I was not disappointed: the naturalism and universal   relevancy of his themes really resonated with me.

Uncle Vanya is about the tensions that arise when an elderly Professor and his attractive young wife visit his provincial relatives (his daughter from his first marriage, her Uncle Vanya and her grandmother) who support their urban lifestyle. It is not an epic tale - actually, its themes and tonality are very similar to Madame Bovary's: ennui, failure, the absurd way we carry on living what we know to be a meaningless existence, the loss of joy and humanity due to the emptiness of the relationships we establish. The social atmosphere masterfully portrayed through the characters' behaviour is one of dull mediocrity. However, unlike in Madame Bovary, there is some hope to be found here: in Vanya and Sonya's stoicism and acute conscience of their own failings and in Astrov's idealism and dedication to the future. 

The play feels like real life: what is left unsaid and undone is what truly defines the characters' lives, which are marked by the (perhaps inescapable) failure to communicate their inner richness to the outside world. This distance between who we feel ourselves to be and the person others perceive is possibly at the root of our constant dissatisfaction as human beings, and it is certainly a tragical aspect of life. However, as Checkhov manages to transmit, there is something inherently comical about this maladjustment. This play succeeds in showing in stark light the absurdity of our expectations and the bitterness of failure - it both makes you laugh and leaves you close to tears. There's a sharpness to the dialogs, particularly when they appear to be on petty topics, which hits close to the core of emotional and social experience (how not to laugh and feel uncomfortable at a line like When a woman isn't beautiful, people always say 'You have lovely eyes, you have lovely hair'?).

How are we to live? How - if at all - can we fit in the world, match our inner world with what is outside? How can we give meaning to our existence (which is by nature, meaningless in the vastness of an uncaring Universe)? These are some of the questions posed, by showing us a tragicomical stage version of ourselves, that this play asks.