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"Anton Checkhov\u2019s language is so rooted in the place and time it was written that contemporary productions often walk a treacherous line: They must not be overly reverent, didacticly aping some agreed-upon standard of period Russianness, nor seem so contemporary that characters\u2019 actions and emotions become decontextualized nonsense. Target Margin Theater tackles these challenges by highlighting them at every turn, marking strange pauses, emphasizing archaic phrases, and inserting dance-like movements and gestures throughout their new production of \u201CUncle Vanya\u201D at HERE (through May 19). This exercise could be insufferable in the wrong hands, but with this &amp;nbsp;ensemble, it\u2019s wildly successful.As if to signal the production\u2019s divergence from period-appropriate d\u00E9corum, the black box theater features just a two-foot-wide sliver of the comfortable country estate where the play is set. The narrow strip of tastefully papered wall and parquet flooring \u2014 accessorized by set designer Laura Jellinek with a taxidermied bear \u2014 reflects the playful approach to the drama, which the cast wrote as a team, pulling from multiple translations and improvised rehearsals. The result is a swift yet improbably faithful staging. The actors hone in on the play\u2019s themes of spoiled idealism and gnawing regret while gently making light of the at times absurd, at times crushing narrative.Vanya (Greig Sargeant), caretaker to Professor Serebryakov\u2019s (Mary Neufeld) estate, bemoans the disruptive effect of the aging scholar\u2019s visit on the retreat\u2019s staff, disdainfully watching his employer \u201Cprancing around the landscape like a rockstar.\u201D The clashes between deeply disillusioned Vanya and senile and achy Serebryakov drive much of the action, with the rest largely fueled by a frustrated love triangle between the professor\u2019s new wife Helena (Rebecca Hart), the country doctor Astrov (Edward O\u2019Blenis), and the professor\u2019s daughter Sonya (Susan Hyon). One element of the original text that proves especially prescient is Dr. Astrov\u2019s quasi-mystic radical environmentalism, which is especially heightened here during a presentation on deforestation. But even in such a potentially overbearing passage the actors open up the text \u2014 even, sometimes, make it funny.Their facility with the language and leaden plot \u2014 which has characters frequently picking over their many sublimated desires during introspective soliloquies \u2014 heightens the emotional richness of Checkhov\u2019s text. Here, as with last season\u2019s \u201CTempest,\u201D Target Margin\u2019s willingness to take on a challenging play by emphasizing rather than smoothing over its difficult aspects has paid off. This ain\u2019t your uncle\u2019s \u201CVanya,\u201D but Checkhov would undoubtedly approve.[content:advertisement-center]"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/804402/chekhovs-uncle-vanya-gets-playful-pomo-update>