CHEKHOV'S classic play Uncle Vanya is a challenge for any drama group but
it is one to which the Company of Ten has risen in exhilarating fashion.
It is currently being performed in the Abbey Theatre Studio in St Albans which,
with its limited size, is perfect for a play which deals with lives bounded
by confinement and duty and the madness which can then ensue.
Uncle Vanya was written more than a century ago and its themes are timeless
and universal. But even Chekhov could not have envisaged how Dr Astrov's dedication
to his forest and tree planting would tap into the concerns of the 21st century.
The play is the first of the new season to be performed in the Studio and it
more than compensates for a slightly wobbly start with Party Piece last month.
Director Terry Prince has a wealth of experience and it shows, not just in
the staging of the play and the intensely claustrophobic atmosphere it invokes
but also in the performances he gets out of his actors.
Not that he needed to do too much with Rory Byrne who takes the part of the
eponymous Vanya and gives a tremendous performance.
But then he is one of a handful of Company of Ten actors who can lift a production
single-handedly and the role of the lovelorn Vanya is perfect for him as his
director must have known.
He dominates every scene in which he appears - no mean feat with the calibre
of the remainder of the cast.
Simon Gibson, another fine actor who has a long pedigree with the Company of
Ten, brings all his experience to the role of the world-weary and tree-planting
Astrov.
The catalysts of the whole play, retired professor Serebryakov and his far
younger wife Yelena, who own the country estate where Vanya's life is played
out are taken by Derek Coe and Lisa White.
Lisa, more often seen with another St Albans drama group OVO, is another excellent
casting, exuding an aura of serenity disguising the passionate nature which
has been subjugated to life with an older husband.
Uncle Vanya is the Company of Ten back at its best and given the size of the
Studio and the reaction of the audience on Saturday night, it is likely to
be sold out for the remainder of the run.
But it continues until Saturday and any remaining tickets can be obtained from
the box office on 01727 857861 or online at www.abbeytheatre.org.uk
MADELEINE BURTON
© Herts Advertiser 2008. Reproduced by permission