With Uncle Vanya, Chekhov creates an “entirely new form in the drama” according to Gorky, who wrote to him: “I started to tremble in admiration of your talent, and tremble in fear for the people, for our colourless, miserable life. How wholesomely you have struck and how accurately.” At the time, the author was criticised for depicting everyday life too closely, whereas today one is impressed by how the play so deeply probes the stirrings of the soul.
Chekhov was 36 years old when he wrote this play, the age the director Julie Deliquet was when she staged it for the Comédie-Française in 2016. An emblematic figure from the new wave of collectives that have stemmed from tg STAN and Les Possédés, she has developed an approach to staging focused on the actor, namely as artistic director of In Vitro. “When I work from a text, I always say that we can trust the author because he is a step ahead of us. The author is the start and end point, what interests me is the journey we take to reach him.” This is a journey the actors begin a new every evening on a stripped-back set on a traverse stage, the actors also being creators of this constellation of Chekhovian solitudes.

Retrouvez également notre spectacle en tournée du 13 au 28 septembre en Île-de-France :
- Théâtre Gérard Philipe - CDN de Saint-Denis
du mercredi 13 au vendredi 15 septembre à 20h, samedi 16 septembre à 18h
- Théâtre des Sablons - Neuilly-sur-Seine
du mercredi 20 au vendredi 22 septembre à 20h30
- Théâtre-Sénart, Scène nationale - Lieusaint
mardi 26 septembre à 20h30, mercredi 27 et jeudi 28 septembre à 19h30

Chekhov did not wish to stage The Wood Demon, this “great Roman comedy” with a barely translatable title, written during the success of Ivanov and his one act plays. It’s crushing failure when premiered in 1889 proved him right. Consequently, between 1890 and 1896, he reworked the play, which eventually became Uncle Vanya. The familiar Chekhovian themes remained – the idleness and boredom of country life, the aspiration to an ideal, failure – but the plot was tightened and the comedy turned into drama. Not only did Chekhov categorically refuse to let The Wood Demon be staged or published, he was also reluctant to have Uncle Vanya produced in big theatres, before accepting to give it to the Moscow Art Theatre, where The Seagull was a huge success. On 26 October 1899, it triumphed on its opening night, which Chekhov did not attend, with Stanislavski in the role of Astrov. Gorky counted among his fervent admirers.

From the Moscow Art Theatre to the Comédie-Française, generations of stage and screen actors have been seduced by the depth of the characters.

Revealed in France in 1921 by Georges Pitoëff, who directed and acted in Uncle Vanya at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier, the play entered the Comédie-Française repertoire in 1961, coming after earlier productions of two of Chekhov’s short plays, Swansong (1945) and_The Bear_ (1957). In this 1961 staging by the young avant-garde director Jacques Mauclair, the translator Elsa Triolet appreciated the cutting of the tearful side that had annoyed Chekhov in Stanislavski’s staging. In 1985, the Comédie-Française presented a new production directed by Félix Prader, at the Théâtre Gérard Philipe in Saint-Denis and then on tour. Vania d’après Oncle Vania, proposed in 2016 by Julie Deliquet, provided an opportunity for this director to continue her work on the actors’ performance.

Staging and sets: Julie Deliquet
Costumes**:** Julie Scobeltzine
Lights**:** Jean-Pierre Michel et Laura Sueur
Music**:** Mathieu Boccaren
Collaboration**:** Julie André
Scenography assistant**:** Laura Sueur
Translation**:** Tonia Galievsky et Bruno Sermonne