“Uncle Vanya” in a Flatiron Loft (Photo: Emilio Madrid)

In a famous disagreement, Anton Chekhov saw his play The Cherry Orchard as a comedy and its director, Konstantin Stanislavski, saw it as a tragedy. In the intervening century-plus, it’s been discussed to death as Chekhov’s reputation as a comedian surges and recedes with changing tastes and as new productions and translations of his plays lean into or away from either end of the drama mask spectrum. But it’s still useful in understanding their collaboration and in thinking about staging any of Chekhov’s plays. The ultimate goal is to strike the bullseye between their two perspectives, to find that bittersweet balance where tears slide down the cheek and meet a smile.

In an absolute triumph, Jack Serio’s production of Uncle Vanya not only hits that exact pinpoint, but lives in it, somehow elongating a fleeting feeling into two and a half hours. There is a relentless yearning filling the 40-seat loft where this unmatched company of actors makes Chekhov’s play a piece of vital storytelling. Paul Schmidt’s translation is shockingly current for a 26-year-old interpretation of a 125-year-old play and Serio’s production amplifies that. Some things (unrequited love, a hopeless unfulfillment with life, climate change) are timeless.

It may have been tempting to use a splashier translation (one thinks of Annie Baker’s), but eschewing a more contemporary version only emphasizes how eternal the themes of the play are. Schmidt’s dialogue, on the page, does have a vague sort of stiffness at times: some of the monologues are slightly repetitive and some of the phrasings feel like they probably read better in Russian. But when they’re spoken by actors of this caliber, mere inches away, that starchiness softens and the language creates its own world. These characters may be dressed like us, but they don’t talk like we do. The acting is naturalistic and frequently underplayed, but Schmidt’s language requires – and rewards – an active ear. The choice of translation goes far in sealing off the space, taking us from E. 22nd Street to this country estate.

That’s also helped by the designers, each doing incredibly subtle, detailed work. Walt Spangler’s scenic design doesn’t disguise the loft, but with two beat-up tables and a few old crates stacked on the modern, white shelves, he adds to the feeling of being out-of-time. Small mirrors hang against the exposed brick behind the two halves of the audience. They are never really acknowledged, but gently reflect back both the characters and our own faces. They suggest something beyond the brick, another layer of the past. Props designer Carrie Mossman hangs ghostly sepia photos on the wall and in frames on the upright piano. How many generations removed are the people in these photos from the characters in the play? Maybe many, maybe none at all. 

There is an art to Ricky Reynoso’s costume design that can be especially appreciated in the close proximity of this production. The fabrics are faded and worn down in places, they have been washed hundreds of times and tossed in the dryer. When Sonya first makes her entrance in Act I, she is wearing an assortment of casual summer hiking garb that made me laugh out loud. It’s not that the hodgepodge is overtly comical, it’s that it’s so believable that this woman would dress like that to go on a quick hike with her father. There’s a pleasure to be taken in recognizing that level of intention and it’s head-to-toe here. With the audience so close (I would argue closer than even a camera could get, at least in looking at the whole body), Reynoso is conveying information with every garment. Look at the socks beneath Telegin’s sandals. Yeah, of course, he would dress like that.

Lighting designer Stacey Derosier  and sound designer Christopher Darbassie are also doing stellar work, albeit more stealthily than their fellow designers. Darbassie has stashed speakers somewhere at the far end of the room that were not at all visible from where I was sitting, giving the introduction of any sound effects an organic feel, almost as if we were hearing the actual creation of said sound. When a car pulls up in Act IV, we, logically, know a car cannot pull up to the fire escape of a second floor window, but Darbassie makes you believe it’s there. 

Derosier lights the majority of the room with two parallel track lights for the daytime scenes and, quite beautifully, a series of table lamps when the sun goes down. At the end of the play, Sonya needs to move a desk lamp to the table and, with great resignation, she yanks the extra length of cord out from behind the piano. She’s not exactly taking out her frustration on the lamp, it’s just one more fucking thing she has to do at the end of an interminable day. Touches like this are what make Serio’s production so rich; if Sonya didn’t need to move the lamp, she’d just sit down at the table and that entire moment would be lost. Everything else fades out and Sonya and Vanya sit in the glow of this light, confessing their impenetrable sadness to each other, the shaded desk lamp showing us the paperwork more than their faces – their responsibilities more than their selves.

“Uncle Vanya” in a Flatiron Loft (Photo: Emilio Madrid)

When a storm comes, Derosier cuts the power and, in the throw of two taper candles, one of the most stunning scenes I have ever seen in thirty years of theatre-going takes place. Serio re-focuses the play on the Astrov-Sonya-Yelena triangle. It may be called Uncle Vanya, but, as great as David Cromer is in the part, he’s not the production’s center. There is a scene in Act II between Astrov and Sonya where Will Brill and Marin Ireland sit on top of a kitchen island and the play, and the entire loft, zeroes in on them. In the glimmer of that candlelight, we see just enough of them to be aware of the proximity of their bodies, of the closeness of their breath. Sonya hangs on his every word and Ireland lights up like a third candle. The flames flicker in Brill’s eyes. These are two indisputable talents playing an incredible scene that alters the course of the play. It’s hard to see that and think Chekhov intended anything else. Such is the force of these performances in the close quarters that allow us to be so near this intensely private moment.

It only continues after that. Julia Chan’s Yelena comes in and Sonya confides in her after Astrov leaves. Chan’s performance brings a different energy, not least because she’s British and everyone else is American. Yelena is an outsider, relatively new to this group, having married Serebryakov and lived away from the country long after they’d all known each other. Yelena tries to help Sonya by having a conversation with Astrov about his feelings for her, but it all backfires. Even as Vanya sees Astrov and Yelena kissing and is heartbroken (he, too, has feelings for her), the production is not really concerned with Vanya’s role in the web. Its impact lies in Sonya revealing her physical insecurities to Yelena and then having them compounded by Astrov’s rejection of her for her confidante. Chan’s performance is inscrutable in the most effective way. Where Brill’s Astrov and Ireland’s Sonya are naked in their emotions, it’s never really clear how Yelena feels about anybody. Is she making out with Astrov for the sheer thrill of someone younger than her husband or does she actually like him? Does Yelena herself even know the answer?

The miraculous thing about the production is that having this electric triangle at its center does not throw off the balance of the play. The company is so well-cast and Serio keeps each scene narrowed on its objectives, holding space for the panorama of the play. The shift towards Astrov-Sonya-Yelena doesn’t detract from the powerful scene where Bill Irwin’s Serebryakov announces that he wants to sell the house and displace the people who live there or from Cromer’s extreme reaction to Vanya’s life being dismissed by his former brother-in-law. As tragic as the circumstances can be, the play is also very funny. The characters sometimes use humor to mask hurt, but sometimes they’re just plainly making a joke, sharing a laugh with someone they’ve known a long time. The company feels bonded, like one big unit, like they all know what everyone is going to say next and they’re ready with a rejoinder or an eye roll.

It’s impossible to enumerate all the remarkable aspects of this production, but there’s one more thing in particular that is indicative of the level of care and thought behind this treasure of a staging. Like the story of Chekhov and Stanislavski’s disagreement about The Cherry Orchard, the principle of Chekhov’s gun makes a surprising appearance in Serio’s production of Uncle Vanya. But here, it’s Chekhov’s pencil. Astrov has a yellow No. 2 tucked behind his ear when Brill first comes on stage. It’s hanging out there several times throughout the following acts. In the play’s concluding scene, I won’t spoil what happens, but the pencil-gun does “go off”; it’s used in a moment that made me want to stand up and applaud the second it happened. Something simple becomes something profound. What a gift to be in that room with those artists making that play. I hope you find a way to be there, too.