Run Time:
Approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes (inc. one intermission)
By Anton Chekhov
Adapted by Andrew Upton
Sydney Theatre Company
Director Tamás Ascher
With John Bell, Cate Blanchett, Sandy Gore, Hayley McElhinney, Anthony Phelan, Richard Roxburgh, Andrew Tighe, Jacki Weaver, Hugo Weaving
On a dilapidated, remote farm, Uncle Vanya and his niece Sonya have worked slavishly to sustain an estate in decline. And so it has been for years, until Sonya’s father and his new wife turn this bucolic scene into a hotbed of disillusionment and consuming unrequited love.
Tamás Ascher directs Anton Chekhov’s classic with exceptional warmth, humor, and insight, in a dazzling, star-studded, and often uproariously funny production by the Sydney Theatre Company, which rose to international prominence under the artistic leadership of Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton.
Ascher’s production of Chekhov’s Ivanov was praised during Lincoln Center Festival 2009 for its “earthy, vigorous staging” and “rough-and-tumble spirit in which the laughs emerge seamlessly out of the bleakness” (New York Times).
