Dueling Uncles Vanya
New York is getting two free outdoor productions of the Chekhov classic this summer.
In my last substack, about shows opening in May, I neglected to mention that Hudson Classical Theater Company is opening their new production of Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov on May 28th.
Their productions, performed outdoors with the audience seated on the steps of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in Riverside Park, are a beloved New York City tradition. I greatly enjoyed last year’s production of Henrik Ibsen’s The Lady From the Sea, and they’ve previously done fine stagings of William Shakespeare’s Richard II and Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The School for Scandal.
However, they are not the only New York company to plan an outdoor production of Uncle Vanya this summer. Shakespeare Downtown, which does outdoor productions in Castle Clinton every summer, will be producing a rival version of Chekhov’s play June 11th through 21st. The work of both companies tends to be uneven, sometimes brilliant and sometimes ridiculous, but generally worth seeing.
Does Manhattan need two different outdoor stagings of Uncle Vanya running in the same month at opposite ends of the island? Regardless of the answer, that’s what we’ll be getting. Shakespeare Downtown has lured me to their historic location in the past by doing plays like Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan and Camille by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The adventurous company frequently dares to stage interesting pieces not always performed these days. This time, though, they’re doing precisely what someone else is doing.
The double Vanya issue probably came about because it’s impossible for every small- and medium-sized company in the city to consult one another and plan complimentary seasons. (Witness the plethora of productions recently of Sophocles’s Antigone in New York.) Still, it’s odd to have these dueling Uncle Vanya revivals going on at the same time (and even closing on the same day).
Dueling productions, however, might be appropriate for Chekhov, whose novella The Duel is hysterically funny. One can only hope that the two productions of Uncle Vanya this summer are just as amusing.
