VANYA ON 42ND STREET
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1994 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: A group of actors get together in an
old theater and perform Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" in
modern dress. This is an odd way to present a good
play. Chekhov does better with a more traditional
performance of his work, and the revisions do
little for the drama of the play. Rating: low +2
(-4 to +4)
This is a play within a play, though there is little in the outer play to do much but to explain why the classic Russian play is being done in modern dress and with virtually no set design. A group of actors get together in an old theater to perform Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" for a tiny audience. The film starts with a few external shots of the streets around the theater, perhaps to get some motion and action into the otherwise static film. Once the play begins, it is performed on one set which it leaves only for a minute or so at intermission. Even that would not matter as much for some playwrights, but Chekhov wrote for a different culture, and audiences used to fast- paced action plays by the likes of William Shakespeare may find the style here a bit off-putting. Chekhov is wont to have actors get their turn in the conversation at speaking and not give up the floor for a good five minutes. The dialogue for this version was written by David Mamet. Mamet himself is used to giving characters short and choppy dialogue, as he did in OLEANNA, and letting the actors speak for so long may have been a bit of a strain on him.
In the inner play Serybryakov (George Gaynes) is an incompetent and talentless academic, successful without ever really understanding his own supposed field of expertise. His entire household sacrificed to support him in his career, doing all the little low-profile clerical tasks so that he could spend his time teaching and writing about art that he did not really understand. Now he has retired and spends his days in writing about nothing at all and rudely demanding obeisance and care from his household. His beautiful second wife Yelena (Julianne Moore) and Sonya his homely daughter from his first marriage (Brooke Smith) tend to his whims. Also tending is Vanya (Wallace Shawn), the cynical and embittered brother of the professor's first wife. Yelena is lovelessly loyal to Serybryakov but is aware of the wistful, unrequited love of her by both Vanya and Dr. Astrov (Larry Pine), the physician who comes to the estate to treat the old professor. In the meantime, Sonya has fallen for Dr. Astrov. With faster pacing these tangled loves might have led to melodrama. Instead it is preparation for entanglement to come.
Wallace Shawn, like Woody Allen, has one of those faces that is hard to take seriously. To some extent that acts as a hindrance to him in this film, but less so than in many other dramatic roles. But it is part of the character Vanya's dilemma that he is not considered and taken seriously. Vanya is really something of a non-entity in his own household and putting a man with a comical face in the role cuts a little from the drama but also adds additional meaning to the story. Julianne Moore, who plays Yelena looks like Jane Curtin and sounds like Diane Keaton. The former does not hurt all that much, but her performance reminds one too much of Keaton in LOVE AND DEATH, which makes a burlesque of just the sort of drama that Chekhov wrote.
Somehow the technical credits show surprising unevenness. Declan Quinn's camera work is more irritation than art. He frames scenes badly, at times slicing off part of an actor's face. Other times all the action will be on one side of the frame while the rest of the frame seems wasted. During some speeches the camera seems distractingly unsteady as if it is being hand-held. All of this may have been intentional, but if so the reason was not apparent. Continuity is poorly maintained. At one point a character plays solitaire and when seen from different angles there are different cards on the table. Again there filmmaker may be saying that it is what is being spoken that is important and not details like care for continuity. It could be a stylistic touch like e.e.cummings writing in lower case, but iF sO iT dID nOT cONVEY aNY sPECIAL mEANING. For that matter, if this is supposed to be a stage play with no technical embellishments we are seeing, we need some explanation as to why we can hear Yelena's thoughts without her lips moving.
There is little in this film that one could not get from seeing a more traditional performance of the Chekhov play. What is good the film owes to Chekhov. Because the play is good, the film gets a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. But a more traditional performance with the same actors would have gotten a higher rating.
Mark R. Leeper
mark.leeper@att.com
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews