Uncle Vanya

Uncle Vanya (Russian: Дядя Ваня – Dyadya Vanya) is a tragicomedy by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov published in 1899. Its first major performance was in 1900 under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski. Uncle Vanya is unique among Chekhov's major plays because it is essentially an extensive reworking of a play published a decade earlier, The Wood Demon. By elucidating the specific changes Chekhov made during the revision process -- these... more

Uncle Vanya (Russian: Дядя Ваня – Dyadya Vanya) is a tragicomedy by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov published in 1899. Its first major performance was in 1900 under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski. Uncle Vanya is unique among Chekhov's major plays because it is essentially an extensive reworking of a play published a decade earlier, The Wood Demon. By elucidating the specific changes Chekhov made during the revision process -- these include reducing the cast-list from almost two-dozen down to a lean nine, changing the climactic suicide of the The Wood Demon into the famous failed homicide of Uncle Vanya, and altering the original happy ending into a more problematic, less final resolution -- critics such as Donald Rayfield, Richard Gilman, and Eric Bentley have sought to chart the development of Chekhov's dramaturgical method through the 1890s. Uncle Vanya was published in 1899, but it is difficult to determine when the work was originally finished, or when the revision... less