Classic no longer means dusty; there has been a rash of recent reinventions and updatings from Thomas Ostermeier’s takes on Ibsen, to Benedict Andrews’ approach to Chekhov. In the UK, it’s often writers who lead the way, as proved by both John Donnelly and Anya Reiss’s fresh-minted versions of The Seagull. Reiss’s The Seagull at Southwark Playhouse in 2012 relocated the action to the 21st century and the Isle of Man; now she sends Uncle Vanya to Yorkshire. By gum, it’s grim up north on the family farm.
So grim that the garden furniture is plastic and buckets are necessary inside when the rain pours down. There are no samovars in evidence, and although the accents waiver around all over the British Isles, the depressed northern setting goes some way to explaining the air of despondency and Vanya’s cut-off jeans. For once you genuinely do believe that everyone is counting the pennies and that the shotgun might be the only way out.
There are losses: Sonya’s great speech of resignation and love at the end of the play becomes flattened, almost thrown away. But there are bonuses, too: seldom have the men in the play all seemed quite such big, comical babies, whether its Jack Shepherd’s petulant second-rate professor, Serebryakov, John Hannah’s resentful Vanya, eaten up by his own failings, or Joe Dixon’s Astrov, whose self-medication goes beyond the bottle to his own medicine chest.
In the case of Vanya and Astrov, these are intelligent men who are quite clearly colluding in the squandering of their own lives. They are both pathetic and funny. What’s missing is any real sense of tragedy, particularly in Hannah’s Vanya, who has a chip on his shoulder so big it’s a surprise he can get through the door.
Russell Bolam’s production often encourages rather too much acting, and is always best when it is most physically and vocally low-key. The evening boasts a fine, painfully self-conscious Sonya from Amanda Hale. It’s a performance which brings a much-needed tenderness to the proceedings. There is a nice touch when Sonya tries on Yelena’s clothes, but still goes entirely unnoticed by the man she loves. The two big moments in the drama – as Vanya stumbles across Yelena and Astrov together, and launches his attack on Serebryakov – are mistimed, reducing both impact and truthfulness. But that might just have been first-night nerves. Not a revelatory revival but a pretty watchable one.
• Until 8 November. Box office: 0844-264 2140. Venue: St James theatre, London.
