My cup of (almost) Russian tea…
Just back from Uncle Vanya at The Harold Pinter.
This has been (rightly) well reviewed. It is played (and curtain-called) as an ensemble, and indeed all the actors are excellent, but Toby Jones (Vanya) and Aimee Lou Wood (Sonya) excel, even though both play against expected physical type (that Sonya is presented as ’plain’ is simply ridiculous).
The first act is played for far more laughs than usual (Toby Jones very much the leader in this department, avoiding the gloom which often appears this early), which gives the shock of the second act, and the bleakness of the third even more impact.
The set itself seems to enact the collapse of the landed gentry into pointless ennui, and the costumes (broadly early 20th Century, but only very broadly) are sufficient to set a tone.
This is a Vanya which captures a society at the end of its natural life (perhaps well beyond that end) – the Revolution could come as no surprise, and even, perhaps, a relief.
It will not be everybody’s Vanya – curiously it was maybe not ‘Russian’ enough for some - but it was mine.