Vanya on 42^nd Street – (1994) André Gregory has the minor role of director for his version of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in a decrepit but charming theater with Wallace Shawn taking the part of Vanya. Segueing from 1994 New York City to one hundred years earlier in Russia, the small audience taking their places, actor Larry Pine in casual conversation with actress Phoebe Brand, the play begins and they become Dr Astrov and Nanny with Vanya waking to their colloquy. The comic character Waffle, whose wife left him on their wedding day, says a man who divorces his wife can’t be trusted with serious decisions since he may similarly betray his country. (Might this apply to Giuliani, Gingrich, and McCain?) Vanya and his niece Sonya (Brooke Smith) have submissively toiled on their estate to provide Professor Aleksandr Serebryakov with the means to travel and lecture because she is the professor’s daughter from his first marriage to Vanya’s sister and Vanya initially admired Serebryakov, now elderly and ill and married to the young and beautiful Yelena (Julianne Moore) for whom Vanya lusts after her luster.

When Serebryakov announces his plan to sell the estate, which actually belongs to Sonya from her mother, to purchase a comfortable home in Finland, Vanya goes into a rage. Meanwhile, Sonya has fallen in love with Dr Astrov, a decent, philosophical physician who expresses concern for the environment, decrying the destruction of trees for profit, but who drinks too much. In the end Sonya fails to win the doctor’s love so tells Vanya that they must await their reward of faith in God. This was director Louis Malle’s final film. Another superb Wallace Shawn and André Gregory film is My Dinner with Andre (1981).

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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