Sonya’s monologue, this heartbreaking voice of despair and at the same time despair, but also desperate courage, contains the dramatic depth of a life crushed by the weight of suffering, bitterness, social injustice and the collapse of all her dreams. Anton Chekhov accurately traces the absurdity of human existence or human symbiosis and explores the comic element arising from this absurdity. The Chekhov theater is distinguished by magical silences, pauses and networks of inner voices of unfortunate creatures doomed to unbearable melancholy, boredom and dead-end loneliness.

In the case of Uncle Vanya (1899), director Dimitris Karanzas did not adapt, or at least did not claim that his performance was an “adaptation” of an urban drama. He correctly chose the uncompromising translation of Chris Prokopakis, direct and clear language, literally obsessing over details, revealing the meaning hidden in every word, a careful translation from the point of view of irony, humor and allusions of Chekhov’s reasoning. He chose her as a powerful ally, but also as a cover for his inability to extract existential essence through Chekhov’s portrayal of life. Directing, however, did not achieve a correspondence between the main themes and details of Chekhov’s dramaturgy.

Maria Panurja worked out in a special way the ergonomics of the stage space of the theater, replacing the stage space with a table, as if wishing to “serve” the performance to the audience on a huge table. The problem, of course, was that the audience at both ends couldn’t see the actors at the end of their respective scene. According to the design of the scene, the dining room served as a “breakfast room”, “observatory of life” and a field for successive conflicts between dramatic figures. In fact, the dining room is a field of cannibalism, as on the table faces bump into each other, scream, cry, laugh, squeal, eat with their hands, dance, behave like savages, sleep, cover half the table and dump the other half … In some scenes they are also under the table, discussing or telling small and big truths. What is certain is that they surprise the viewer as he clumsily tries to put together the pieces of a puzzle that is more like a disparate theme than Chekhov’s fusion of dramatic and comic texture. The direction shifted the emphasis from Chekhov’s melancholy, silence and inner power of speech to movement, expressiveness of movements and sonority of voices.

The costumes of Joanna Tsami betray uniformity. The elderly Marina (Maria Filini) appears as a typical beautiful Russian woman, removed from the modest role of Nena. While the actors make up a strong ensemble, they agree with the director’s idea of ​​a wild and riotous approach to family drama.

Manolis Mavromatakis as the hypochondriac Serebryakov, a professor suffering from gout, gives the hero more dementia and less rheumatism as he dresses and undresses on stage, performing what the role requires at the first and basic level.

The emphasis shifts from Chekhov’s melancholy and silence to the impressiveness of movements and the sonority of voices.

Fidel Talaboukas as Dr. Astrophe and Antonis Antonopoulos as the vermin-ridden landowner Teleigin work well as a dance duo that doesn’t offer dramatic depth, however, or build behavior that would bond them to family members.

The performances of Theodora Zimu (Elena) and Iros Bezu (Sonya) are distinguished by gestures, nuances of voice and an intense desire to emphasize and preserve elements of psychological realism.

An actor who is actively trying to become independent is Christos Loulis. He articulated the speech of the decadent Voinitsky, perhaps with an air more prosperous than the actual nature of the role, but he certainly responded consistently to the image of a hero longing for real life at the moment when he realizes that she is lost. The participation of Xenia Kalogeropoulou in the role of the widow Maria Vasilievna is touching.

Directing did not weigh the details and psychological nuances. Complaints and protests are different from screaming. Obviously there are variations. And in Chekhov’s plays, especially silence has its dramatic role.

* Ms. Rhea Grigoriou is a Doctor of History and Drama at AUTH and Professor of Greek Culture at EAP.