The Robert Woodruff era at the American Repertory Theatre begins in earnest next week with the opening of what promises to be a provocative 2002-2003 season. New artistic director Woodruff, executive director Rob Orchard, and associate artistic director Gideon Lester have recruited a series of "signature" directors to write their names all over works first penned by the likes of Euripides, Marivaux, and Shakespeare. Peter Sellars, Anne Bogart, and Andrei Serban loom on the horizon, but first up is János Szász and his interpretation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya.
Szász, a Hungarian, is the ART’s current European director of choice, having staged Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children and Peter Weiss’s Marat/Sade the past two seasons. Both productions were marvels of epic theater, defined by grand and gritty spectacle and a chorus of extras (soldiers, asylum inmates) choreographed by Csaba Horváth. Chekhov is a change of pace for Szász, no less grand in spirit but smaller in scale and more nuanced in tone. "I love studio theater, intimate theater," he says through translator Katalin Mitchell, ART director of press and public relations. "With Chekhov, it is extremely important that the actor engage the character honestly, truthfully, and in a very real manner. To do that, we are creating a production that will be like studio theater."
Chekhov was a staple of the ART repertoire under former artistic director Robert Brustein: the Russian writer’s five major full-length plays, his one-act vaudevilles, adaptations of his short stories, and even the ungainly Platonov all received production. Having been staged by David Wheeler in 1988, Uncle Vanya is the first Chekhov play to receive a second ART production. This is also Szász’s second time around with Vanya. When he first directed it in Hungary, five years ago, he was "in a bad phase" of his life. Returning to the work now, he says, "is a celebratory occasion because I have the chance to look at what I did before and have a completely new view of it."
Szász finds the play’s emphasis has changed for him. "The [earlier] production was about love. And now, this production is about friendship. This is a man’s play. Three Sisters is more of a woman’s play. Even [brother] Andrei is one of the sisters. I don’t know much about friendships between women, but friendship between men I know very well, and this is what the play is like."
Written in 1896 and performed at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1899, Uncle Vanya presents a familiar ensemble of Chekhovian dreamers and malcontents; they come together for a time on a provincial Russian estate and then, their hopes dashed and their ideals undercut by reality, go their separate ways again. The chief friendship is that between Vanya, the hard-working manager of the estate, and Astrov, a country doctor who is also a crusading naturalist. For Szász, part of what makes Vanya and Astrov kindred spirits is that "it is very clear to them where they came from and where they are going. They know that there is a point in their lives when they should have gone through another door, but for various reasons they made the wrong choices. Now they are between 40 and 50, and there is no way out."
ART veteran Thomas Derrah plays Vanya; Arliss Howard, who was featured in the title role of Chekhov’s Ivanov at the ART a few seasons ago, is Astrov. They’re joined by Will LeBow as Serebryakov, the retired art-history professor who owns the estate; Phoebe Jonas as Sonya, Serebryakov’s daughter by his first marriage and Vanya’s niece; and ART first-timer Linda Powell as Yelena, Serebryakov’s current wife and the object of both Vanya’s affection and Astrov’s.
Uncle Vanya is presented by the American Repertory Theatre at the Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle Street in Harvard Square, November 30 through December 28. Tickets are $34 to $68; $12 student rush. Call (617) 547-8300.
