Synopsis
Adaptation of Chekhov's play from the Chichester Festival.
Uncle Vanya
Cast
Directors
Writers
Production Design
Composer
Genre
Releases by Date
Theatrical
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UK
TV
12 Nov 1990
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Greece
Releases by Country
Greece
12 Nov 1990
- TV Προβλήθηκε στην "ΕΡΤ" αντί για θεατρικό έργο του "Θεάτρο της Δευτέρας".
UK
20 Nov 1963
- Theatrical
Popular reviews
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I’m just a Russian estate steward, standing in front of my brother-in-law’s hot young wife, asking her to save me from my all-consuming ennui.
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All four leads give it their all, but it’s really Joan Plowright who shines. I watched this in anticipation of seeing “Drive My Car”. I read a ton of Chekhov in both high school and college, but had never seen a production before, weirdly enough.
Two main observations:
1) Woody Allen owes a huge debt to Chekhov, especially with Hannah and her Sisters. His more dramatic films borrow much from Chekhov’s style of juxtaposing emotional outpourings with stoicism. Are these professions of love simply a battle against the void his characters are feeling, due to their inability to feel true love? Work! We will find solace in work! Well, comes the revolution, you’ll get worked all right, you boogie layabouts.… -
Wiki had some particularly glowing reviews mentioned about this production of the play (one calls it the "master achievement in British twentieth-century theatre"). I'm finding it hard to see that level of acclaim, but maybe I'm viewing it as a film and not a play -- and cinematically, it wasn't all that impressive. It feels like they just filmed a play, though the lack of audience makes me unsure. The acting is great (it's a bunch of British legends), but the rest of it all left me cold. I'm not wild about Chekhov really, though I was unfamiliar with Uncle Vanya in particular before today (except for it being used in Drive My Car).
Laurence Olivier is apparently a co-director of this (he also stars in it), but isn't listed as such on Letterboxd.
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Going to see a live production of "Uncle Vanya" at the Pasadena Playhouse tomorrow, so watched this on Kanopy as a kind of homework assignment, since I have basically no knowledge of the play. It was good! Extremely posh accents. Neat to see Laurence Olivier, Joan Plowright, and Rosemary Harris in their prime.
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I'm feeling a sense of diminishing results with these Chekhov plays. I began with Olivier's Three Sisters, then moved on to Eyre's The Cherry Orchard, and now this, Burge's Uncle Vanya. The preeminence of each production as a standard would also seem to diminish in line with this (after all, Olivier is better than Eyre and especially Burge). These plays seem to mull over much the same concerns, so by the time I get to this Uncle Vanya it feels overly familiar, although there are clearly so many great lines poking through. I remember his short stories being a little more diverse.
Plowright, Ro. Harris, M. Redgrave, Olivier and Thorndike means this is obviously a great time regardless of what…