Uncle Vanya

About

Chekhov's 1898 masterpiece follows the inhabitants of a Russian country estate thrown into crisis by the visit of a retired professor and his beautiful young wife: Vanya, who has sacrificed his life managing the estate, discovers the professor is a fraud; the local doctor Astrov falls for the wife; nobody gets what they want. The play's genius is in rendering ordinary disappointment with such precision that it becomes unbearable — and then finding, in that unbearability, something like compassion. It influenced virtually every naturalist playwright who followed. The final scene, in which Vanya and Sonya return to their ledgers and simply endure, is one of the most affecting endings in all drama.