Uncle Vanya

PRESS RELEASE
Uncle Vanya

By Anton Chekhov Directed by Susan Wilson
Translated by Stuart Young

Uncle Vanya, a captivating story of tangled and tragic love by one of the best, most original and influential playwrights of all time, opens at CIRCA Theatre on Saturday 28th April at 8pm, and runs until 2nd June.

Chekhov’s superbly comic and beautifully tender masterpiece is set on the family’s remote country estate, where Vanya, his niece, Sonya and the local doctor, Astrov find the calm of their lives thrown into chaos by the arrival of Sonya’s father, the ailing Professor Serebryakov and his beautiful young wife, Yelena.

An acutely observed study of humanity, Uncle Vanya is a brilliant and unforgettable classic of Russian theatre. Lev Dodin, the director of St Petersburg’s Maly Theatre who is world renowned for its interpretation of Chekhov, describes Uncle Vanya as “A diamond. It is the most beautiful and crystalline of all Chekhov’s plays.”

Subtitled “Scenes from a Village Life” Uncle Vanya wonderfully illustrates Chekhov’s celebrated gift for capturing the ordinariness of people’s everyday lives. He said famously: ”Let everything on the stage be just as complex and at the same time just as simple as in life. People dine, merely dine, but at that moment their happiness is being made or their life is being smashed.”

In Uncle Vanya Chekhov shows us people trying, increasingly desperately, to inject some drama into their very ordinary, unremarkable lives in order to escape the sense – especially acute in Vanya’s case - of a life wasted and unfulfilled. In Chekhov’s hands, this is both poignant and deeply comic. Chekhov always insisted that his plays are comedies, and this is certainly true of Uncle Vanya, which features elements of pure farce and whose tone is, above all, ironic. Vanya’s predicament is however universally recognizable – everyone knows what it is like to be gripped by a dream and not succeed – and yet at the end, there is consolation.

With a wonderful cast that is a fine blend of experience and rising talent, a new up-to-date local translation by New Zealander Stuart Young (The Cherry Orchard), beautiful costumes by Gillie Coxill, and directed by leading director Susan Wilson (Death of a Salesman, The Cherry Orchard), Uncle Vanya is exciting, special, and not-to-be-missed theatre.

Starring: BRUCE PHILLIPS, JEFFREY THOMAS, MEL DODGE,
DANIELLE MASON, GAVIN RUTHERFORD, KATE HARCOURT,
DONNA AKERSTEN, PETER VERE-JONES

“Spine-tingling, heart-wrenching, exhilarating”- New Statesman

“One of the greatest and most moving plays ever written” - Daily Telegraph

“The most prescient writer of the twentieth century” – Nicholas Wright

Uncle Vanya
Opens on SATURDAY 28th April at 8pm
and runs until 2nd June 2007.

$20 PREVIEW - Friday 27th April - 8pm

$20 SUNDAY SPECIAL - Sunday 29th April – 4pm

AFTER-SHOW FORUM – Tuesday 1st May

Performance times: Tues & Wed - 6.30pm; Thurs, Fri and Sat - 8pm; Sun - 4pm.

Prices: $35 Adults; $28 Students, Senior Citizens and Beneficiaries
$30 Groups 6+ $18 Student Standby - from 1 hour before the show

Kindly supported by CHRIS FINLAYSON

BOOKINGS: CIRCA Theatre, 1 Taranaki Street, Wellington Phone 801 7992
www.circa.co.nz

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ANTON PAVLOVICH CHEKHOV
Playwright

Anton Chekhov was born in 1860, the son of a grocer and the grandson of a serf, and brought up in a small port town on the Sea of Azov. After a harsh childhood he went to Moscow in 1879 and entered the medical faculty of the university, graduating in 1884. During his university years he supported his family by contributing stories and sketches to magazines. In 1885 he met Soovorin, editor of Novoye Vremya, in St Petersburg, who encouraged him to write and in 1886 Chekhov published a volume of stories. In 1887 his first full-length play Ivanov was produced in Moscow. For five years he lived in the country near Moscow, practicing medicine and writing many of his best stories. It was there that he began to accumulate his wealth of subtle observations of the peasants who came to see him in the hospital, of the army officers (stationed in the little town), and of those innumerable characters typical of provincial Russia of his time.
But when his health started to fail he moved to Crimea, and after 1900 most of his life was spent at Yalta where he met Tolstoy and Gorky. He wrote his best-known plays in the last years of his life. In 1898 Stanislavsky produced The Seagull at his newly founded Moscow Art Theatre, and it was for him that Chekhov wrote Uncle Vanya (1900), The Three Sisters (1901) and The Cherry Orchard (1903). But just as he was beginning to gain international recognition as a major dramatist, Chekhov suffered two heart attacks and died in the German spa town of Badenweiler, in July 1904.
Chekhov’s other plays include On the High Road, The Bear, The Wood Demon, The Wedding, Platonov, and The Proposal,

STUART YOUNG
Translator

Since the beginning of 2006, Stuart has been Associate Professor and Head of the Theatre Studies programme at the University of Otago. Prior to that he taught Drama and Theatre at the University of Auckland (for 13 years).
Stuart comes from Wellington. He has an MA(Hons) in Russian and French from Victoria University, and a PhD in English (Cambridge).
Chekhov-in-performance is a major focus of his research and teaching.
He is concerned with the production of Chekhov and other Russian drama, especially on the British and New Zealand stages, and with rewritings and relocations of the plays. He is also interested in Translation Studies and translation practice in the theatre, and has translated a number of plays from Russian and French, including The Cherry Orchard for Circa in 2005.
Stuart is currently on study leave in England, where he is catching up with four new Chekhov productions, one of each of the four great plays.

SUSAN WILSON
Director

Susan is known throughout New Zealand for her work as both an actor and a director. She received the ONZM for her Services to Theatre in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list 2002.
In 1981 she won the Feltex Best Actress award for her role as Beryl in the television series Gliding On a role she continued in the sequel TV series - Market Forces.
Susan is a co-founder of Circa Theatre and a current member of the Circa Council. She has directed a number of smash hits for Circa including Torch Song Trilogy, Stevie, Woman in Mind, Mrs Klein and Entertaining Mr Sloane. Susan has directed four of the late Robert Lord’s plays, Bert & Maisy, China Wars, Glorious Ruins, and Joyful & Triumphant, the production which gained her the Director of the Year Award at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards in 1992. Susan also directed its return season at the State Opera House, its subsequent national tour and the tours to Sydney, Adelaide, and London.
She again received the Director of the Year Award in 1994 for her production of Angels in America, which opened the new Circa on the Waterfront venue. Other plays which she has directed include The Learner’s Stand, Dylan Thomas: Nogood Boyo (Wellington & Sydney), Broken Glass, Arcadia (Winner of the Circa production of the Year 1995), The Herbal Bed, Amy’s View, The Big Picture, Boys at the Beach, Travesties, Rutherford (NZ Festival 2000) The End of the Golden Weather, The Seagull, Noises Off, Take a Chance on Me, The Face Maker (NZ Festival 2002), The Real Thing, The Importance of Being Earnest, Oxygen, In Flame, A Passionate Woman, The Breath of Life, Vincent in Brixton, the sell-out success Taking Off. In 2005 she directed The Cherry Orchard, Bright Star and Roger Hall’s pantomime, Cinderella, and in 2006 she directed Death of a Salesman (winner of Director of the Year at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards), Picture Perfect and Roger Hall’s pantomime Aladdin, and was dramaturg for Troy, The Musical.

DONNA AKERSTEN
Mariya

Donna is well known throughout New Zealand for her work on Stage, TV and Film. Winner of the Best Actress award at the Chapman Tripp Awards 2002 for her role as Meg in The Birthday Party, she was last seen at Circa in The Cherry Orchard, Taking Off, Vincent in Brixton, She Stoops to Conquer, The Breath of Life, Humble Boy, Conversations After a Burial, The Importance of Being Earnest, Life x 3, and the smash hit Take a Chance on Me. Her previous Circa productions include Noises Off, The Seagull, A Delicate Balance, Honor, The Cripple of Inishmaan, Broken Glass, Hamlet, Entertaining Mr Sloane, The Sisters Rosensweig, Angels in America, Insignificance and Middle Age Spread. She was last seen at Downstage as Big Mama in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Other Downstage credits include Daughters of Heaven, The Importance of Being Earnest, and The Cherry Orchard.
Donna is also a frequent guest actress at the Auckland Theatre Company. Acclaimed for her portrayal of Honor, in 1999 she won the ATC Best Actress award in Roger Hall’s one-woman show The Book Club, and was most recently seen there as Colleen Bacon in Secret Bridesmaids’ Business.
Television includes Jackson’s Wharf, Shortland Street, The Fireraiser, Country GP and Bread and Roses, and film: Via Satellite, The Last Tattoo, Middle Age Spread, Te Rua, Bad Blood and Sleeping Dogs.
Donna received a MNZM for her services to the theatre in the New Year Honours list 2003.

MEL DODGE
Sonya

Mel has an MA in Acting from ArtsEd London.
Since returning to New Zealand she has established her own theatre company BRAVE for which she has appeared in The 1/4 Pounding ,'Fight or Flight and Anything to Declare? Anything to Declare? had a successful season at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2006. Other credits include Senga in My Heart is Bathed in Blood, Marjory Pinchwife in The Country Wife, Lisa in Collected Stories, Greta in Taming of the Shrew, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Ella in Kiwifruits, Sam in No Moa and Fairy Lilly in Enchanted Tales.
Uncle Vanya is Mel's debut performance for Circa Theatre.
www.meldodge.com

KATE HARCOURT
Marina

DANIELLE MASON
Yelena

A 2002 graduate of Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School, Danielle holds a Bachelor of Arts from Waikato University. Since completing her studies Danielle has performed widely for stage, screen and radio.
In 2004 she won Chapman Tripp Theatre awards for Best Female Newcomer in Collected Stories directed by Miranda Harcourt, and Most Outstanding Performance in The Shape of Things directed by Ross Jolly (both at Circa Theatre).
Other stage credits include Private Lives, Fond Love and Kisses, An Inspector Calls, The Remedy Syndrome, Finding Willy, Lulu, Dinner, Hitchcock Blonde and Dracula.
Danielle appears as the lead female role in the NZ feature film Black Sheep.

BRUCE PHILLIPS
Uncle Vanya

A busy actor/director for 31 years, Bruce has appeared twice in two of Chekhov’s plays, The Seagull (Trigorin - Downstage 1980, Circa 2000) and The Cherry Orchard (Gayev - Court Theatre 2002, Circa 2005), but never before in Uncle Vanya. He says he never before realised the richness and depth of this play and is delighted to be cast in it. Last year he directed Dinner, and A Number and acted in The Rivals at Circa and this year has just directed the fantastic Two Brothers which was highly esteemed by discerning audiences. This year is the 20th anniversary of Bruce joining the Circa Council. He is pleased to see the extraordinary progress the theatre has made during that time: “there is no other theatre in the country which has the breadth of programming and the facilities that we do. Wellington, I hope you realise how spoiled for choice you are!”

GAVIN RUTHERFORD
Telyegin

Gavin Rutherford has been working as an actor and director since graduating from UNITEC School of Performing and Screen Arts in 2001. He has performed most recently at the Museum Hotel in the multi award winning sitespecific.co.nz show Hotel during the Fringe Festival for which he received the Most Outstanding Performance award. He has also recently performed at Court Theatre in Christchurch and Fortune Theatre in Dunedin. Circa audiences may remember him from Wild East, An Inspector Calls, This Lime Tree Bower, Ugly Customers and The Cherry Orchard. His most recent film and television credits include Insiders Guide to Love and Lost Children.

JEFFREY THOMAS
Mikhail Astrov

Jeffrey Thomas has written two books, including a collection of stories for children, and also written and directed one short film, Making Money.
Winner of Best Actor Award for TV’s Mercy Peak, Jeffrey was last seen on stage at Circa as Lars in Dinner.
He has recently returned from the UK where he appeared in the long-running BBC Welsh language drama series Pobol Y Cwm.
His move to a new career as a quantity surveyor is currently on hold.

PETER VERE-JONES
Professor Serebryakov

Peter Vere-Jones has been working as a professional actor since 1961.
A lead and character actor for Radio New Zealand Drama, he moved into television and theatre as they developed.
In television he has appeared in a great many productions, from the first major NZ TV drama, The Evening Paper by Bruce Mason, to almost all the popular series from Pukemanu to Shortland Street and Duggan. He has played leading roles in Xena and Hercules, and has many NZ film credits.
He has performed regularly at both Downstage and Circa Theatres since their earliest days. Favourite performances include Salieri in Tony Taylor’s production of Amadeus (Downstage) and several productions of Pinter plays by Ross Jolly at Circa, especially No Man’s Land and The Birthday Party. Also Estragon in the Beckett classic Waiting for Godot. In 2000 and 2002 Peter toured Bruce Mason’s solo show, The End of the Golden Weather. In 2005 he appeared as Firs in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, and as Horst Ehmke in Democracy.
In 2000 he was made an ONZM for services to acting and writing.

ENDS

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