Chekhov Uncle Vanya

About Uncle Vanya

Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (1899) is one of the most emotionally devastating plays in the Russian repertoire — a work in which nothing dramatic happens and everything is destroyed. Vanya and his niece Sonya have spent twenty years managing the estate of Professor Serebryakov, sacrificing their lives to support an academic career they now discover is worthless. Vanya's fury cannot save him; he fires two shots at Serebryakov and misses; the play ends with the account books and Sonya's heartbreaking promise of rest after death. Like all four of Chekhov's great plays — The Seagull (1896), Uncle Vanya (1899), Three Sisters (1901), and The Cherry Orchard (1904) — it is simultaneously a comedy and a tragedy, and its power comes from the refusal to resolve that ambiguity.