The Old Vic: Part II

On sack and ale they had nourished: opening on Broadway in Shakespeare's Henry IV (TIME, May 20), England's Old Vic seemed lustily alive. But vodka was not quite their drink; and in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya last week the Old Vic did some noticeable stumbling.

The trouble was twofold: they had neither chosen too wisely nor performed too well. Playing Chekhov in another language must always discolor him a little; and to offer U.S. audiences a perceptibly British version of Chekhov is to discolor him further. Moreover, the reserved and chin-up British are not entirely at home with the soul and the samovar.

Where the Old Vic pre-eminently caught Shakespeare's spirit in Henry IV, in Uncle Vanya they only fitfully captured Chekhov's tone. The direction seemed fussy in some places, off-center in others; two or three roles were misplayed, and in the title role Ralph Richardson, though always a good actor, seemed miscast.

Potshots and Self-Pity. A typical Chekhov study of frustration, the play is over, in a sense, before it starts: all that is left to most of its people is recriminations and regrets. A selfish mediocrity whose family pampered him and thought him great, Professor Serebryakou is peevish now for having got nowhere, for having got old. Middleaged, rust-covered Vanya --who has sacrificed his life to the professor and declared too late his love for the professor's shallow, pretty wife--wallows in self-pity, and when finally roused to rage takes potshots at the professor--and misses.

The drama of these people is that they have recoiled from drama, are unfit for drama--can only poke around in the cupboard of memories and might-have-been. That, too, is the pathos of them. But it is a pathos that Chekhov sharply rings with humor and partly punctures with insight. Always compassionate, he is never deceived. The wand he waves to evoke moods suddenly becomes a scalpel that lays motives bare. He sees all that is flabby--and all that is funny--in these people who make mournfulness their metier.

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