Chekhov’s Aristocrats, Ever Absorbed in Themselves
Ben BrantleyApril 9, 2010: The fog of repression that smothers many American or British productions of Chekhov’s plays is absent from the Maly Drama Theater’s emotionally unbridled staging of “Uncle Vanya,” which can be seen at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater through Sunday. Commemorating the 150th anniversary of Chekhov’s birth with an international tour, this venerable Russian company, led by Lev Dodin, brings us a savory taste of that country’s most celebrated playwright in the stinging flavors rarely seen on our shores. There is flinty, funny life in these chronically unsatisfied aristocrats absorbed in complaints about their wasted hopes and bleak futures, if only they had the wisdom to see it.
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