THEATRE REVIEW:
KPBS
AIRDATE: March 14, 2003
By most accounts, and in most
productions, Uncle Vanya is a depressive, a broken middle-aged man who has
subordinated his own dreams and ambitions to providing support for his esteemed
brother-in-law, a scholar he ultimately views as an intellectual sham. In the
New Village Arts production, Vanya appears to be a rather young alcoholic with
the DTs-- a hyper, twitchy, sputtering, stuttering mess with so many tics and
mannerisms he's just about unwatchable. The irony is that this is a blatant
imitation of the director's acting style, twisted into caricature. The New
Village artistic director, Fran Gercke, has a signature nervous energy onstage.
Joshua Everett Johnson, apparently trying to emulate Gercke's every agitated
gesture, is in constant motion, so jittery he induces anxiety in the audience
and distracts from his fellow actors. There's no subtlety and no dramatic arc
to his performance, and it shifts the whole focus of the piece, making the
country doctor Astrov the central (and most compelling) character.
Overall, this production is filled with
contradictions and incongruities; they may be intentional, but they're often
disconcerting. The all-white, suggestive set is minimalist and nearly
futuristic, though the costumes are strictly 19th century. The music
(played by Paul Woodrum) morphs from American country-folk at the outset to
Slavic during the show. The lighting has all the shadows and silhouettes of a
candle-lit Russian country house, but Jeff Jones' sound is abstract and
symbolic. The acting is also variable and lacks a cohesive style. There's a
palpable sexual energy between Matt Scott's doctor Astrov and Jennifer Austin's
pretty, flirtatious Yelena, though he laughs a lot for a disillusioned
idealist, and she has more stage business and less indolence than the
irresistible character requires. As her husband, Charlie Riendeau is not as
pompous or demanding as one would expect of an ailing old professorial geezer
who makes everyone's life miserable in his visit to the family home. Julianna
Lorenz is perfectly plain and heartbreaking as poor hard-working, lovesick
Sonya, pining for the doctor who never notices her, but the secondary characters
are fairly flat and ill-defined.
In its first several efforts, the
fledgling North County company repeatedly hit the mark with outstanding
productions. Chekhov would seem to be an ideal match for the talented
co-founders, Gercke and his wife, Kristianne Kurner, whose training at the
prestigious Actor's Studio is rooted in the 'Method acting' developed by
Konstantin Stanislavski, "Vanya's" first director. In this play about
lassitude, decay and quiet desperation, many productions are overly lugubrious.
This one errs in the opposite direction; although there are some poignant
moments, parts of it are so wired that the whole lacks sufficient gravitas. But
this new translation by Curt Columbus makes the tale of family deception and
frustrated love comprehensibly clear and painfully timeless.
©2003
Patté Productions Inc.