These are strong proposals that Galin Stoev signs in his reading ofUncle Vania by Anton Chekhov. The decor, recycled with elements from his previous staging ofIvanOFF by Fredrik Brattberg, would shape the ecological consciousness of this 1897 play. Its new translation would support the everydayness of Chekhov’s language. Finally, the work on the dystopian atmosphere would play not on an idea of the end of a world, but with a post-apocalyptic world, of which the characters would be the survivors.
Who are they ? Two city dwellers, Professor Sérébriakov and Elena, his young wife too beautiful for him, who come to settle in the countryside on the estate managed by “uncle” Vania and Sonia, the professor’s daughter consumed with love for the doctor Astrov. The arrival of the couple hysterizes family, romantic, sexual and social frustrations, in a crisis system where the executioners are innocent and the victims consenting.
On paper everything fits together: Stoev, a director of Bulgarian origin, reconnects with his theatrical culture, finds the author with whom he grew up, and knows perfectly the dramaturgical springs of this play exploded in “Scenes of Country Life, in Four Acts”. But on the set it resists, and all the construction put in place is exhausted over the performance.
too much demonstration
First of all, this decor “recovered” by Alban Ho Van: a waiting room, we are told, rather a space of odds and ends with tires, mechanical piano, samovar, standing microphones and a few very much alive hens. It’s not a problem of scenography but of the role we want him to play. This space quickly becomes a meeting room where the doctor Astrov – excellent Cyril Gueï – will be able to deliver his ecological emergency speech on the threatened forest in a staging effect so strong that he misses his shot.
It is this “ecological” question that poses the problem. As if Galin Stoev thought he had found there the contemporary idea ofUncle Vaniaeven as it crosses its theater – it is enough to think back to the formidable reading that Tiago Rodrigues had made of it two years ago with his cherry orchard, where it was no longer a question of lamenting the loss of the cherry orchard, symbol of monoculture, but of thinking about the alternative of small plots for a permaculture ecology. Each time the staging touches on the subject, it fails by too much demonstration, as in this scene where Astrov unfolds on the ground the long roll of maps of the domain, on which he will paint his various projects on his knees; spectators on the floor won’t see anything, those on the balcony will have better luck.
One-sided game
There remains the bias of dystopia, which projects the characters into an indefinite time where no one seems to be playing the same play. It could be great: imagining actors taking turns defending a different version ofUncle Vanya We approach it here in view of the evolution of intelligently heterogeneous costumes that never lock the characters into a single visual identity. But the unilateral game of the actors does not confirm this track. We can change our shirts, we can wear a long white dress and then immaculate pop thigh-high boots, everyone plays their character like a character, a job. So we think back to the program announced by the new translation: an effect of domestication. When the uncle Vania of the title becomes the “uncle” of the plateau, we attend indifferent to a family story that no longer concerns us.
Uncle Vania ms Galin Stoev at the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe (75006) until February 26 and May 26 at the Grrranit, national scene of Belfort (90000).