About this ebook
On an isolated country estate, Sonia and her Uncle Vanya are committed to a life of ceaseless toil. But when the ageing invalid Serebriakov and his bewilderingly beautiful young wife take up residence, a yearning envelops the household and disturbs the accustomed tedium. Friend and confidant Astrov grows lovelorn, Sonia's heart breaks and even Vanya falls under the spell. And so they fight, bond, belittle, lament, make peace and contemplate the odd murder.
Featuring sex, comedy and unbearable sadness in nineteenth-century Russia, this version of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya was written and directed by Terry Johnson and opened at Hampstead Theatre, London, in November 2018.
And having weathered the storm, what's left? My feelings for you; a few droplets on a window pane, catching the sun, running down a way, drying to nothing.
About the author
Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), son of a former serf, graduated in medicine from Moscow University in 1884. He began to make his name first as a short-story writer, then in the theatre with the one-act comedies The Bear, The Proposal and The Wedding. His full-length plays are Platonov (written in 1878 but unpublished and unperformed in his lifetime), Ivanov (1887), The Wood Demon (1889), The Seagull (1896), Uncle Vanya (1899), Three Sisters (1901) and The Cherry Orchard (1904).
Terry Johnson is a playwright and director. His dozen major theatre awards include a Tony for Best Director La Cage Aux Folles, and Oliviers for Best Comedy for Hysteria and Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick. He is a former Literary Associate at the Royal Court where five of his own plays - Insignificance, Cries from the Mammal House, Hysteria, Hitchcock Blonde and Piano/Forte were first staged. Imagine Drowning, Dead Funny, Prism, Ken, and this version of Uncle Vanya all premiered at Hampstead, and Cleo, Camping, Emmnuelle and Dick, and his adaptation of The London Cuckolds at the National Theatre. West End credits include Mrs Henderson Presents, The Duck House, End of the Rainbow, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, Rain Man, Whipping It Up, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Hitchcock Blonde, The Graduate, Dead Funny, Hysteria, Elton John's Glasses and The Memory of Water. In 2014 he celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop with revivals at Stratford East of Oh What a Lovely War and Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be.
