Vanya (Lucille Lortel Theatre)

By Harry Forbes

Andrew Scott is certainly riding a career high: the Irish actor’s much praised turn as Garry Essendine in an updating of Noel Coward’s “Present Laughter” at the National Theatre (also streamed); his starring role in the gripping Netflix “Ripley” series; his extraordinary performance in “All of Us Strangers” on the big screen; and this, his one-man performance of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,” in which he takes on all nine parts.

The last played London’s West End, and also streamed in cinemas, courtesy of NT Live, and has now come to town where we get to see Scott’s amazing tour de force in person. Scott actually trod the boards in New York in 2006 with a supporting role in David Hare’s “The Vertical Hour” with Julianne Moore and Bill Nighy in their respective Broadway debuts but now he’s very much center stage. 

Adapter Simon Stephen, director Sam Yates, and designer Rosanna Vize all share co-creator credit with Scott himself, and in all, they’ve done a masterful job of distilling the action to the concept at hand. Though it’s clear things have been updated from the 19th century, the names have been Anglicized --Mikhail Astrov, the doctor, is called Michael, Marina the nanny is Maureen, Waffles is called Liam, Yelena is Helena and so on -- and all the accents are Irish, “Vanya”is in essence scrupulously faithful to its source. The most blatant alteration is Helena’s elderly pompous husband Alexander is now a filmmaker rather than a retired professor. 

So, too, there are some 20th century music cues.There is a sprinkling of f-words, a revision that even David Mamet, never one to shy away from an expletive, eschewed in his excellent adaptation of decades ago.

Otherwise, Chekhov is treated with due reverence, and the adaptation seems far more authentic than many other “Vanyas” we’ve had of late, including last season’s starry revival at Lincoln Center. 

Scott morphs effortlessly from character to character, sometimes leaving the stage through an upstage door to emerge two seconds later as with a different persona. And sometimes just changing position, or throwing his voice like a deft ventriloquist.

Much of Scott’s delivery is in a naturalistically quiet, conversational tone, requiring us to listen intently,  though he rises to dramatic heights in the scene of Vanya’s violent outburst. 

Which is not to say that there isn't an occasional confusion as to who is speaking even with a minimal use of props that sometimes help with character identification. Vanya initially wears shades. Michael compulsively bounces a ball. Sonia, Alexander’s daughter, plays with a cloth. Helena fiddles with her necklace. But more often everything is accomplished purely with body language and vocal delivery.

Still and all, a familiarity with "Uncle Vanya" makes a richer experience, and if you plan to see it, I would bone up on the play. (Helpfully, there are several superb productions on YouTube.)

Fabulous as Scott is, I won’t pretend that there weren’t moments I longed for a full cast but Scott’s dexterity and skill are more than compensation. So, too, his assumption of all the roles makes clear the commonality of their loneliness and sense of unfulfillment. 

Vize’s set gives Scott ample playing space, but one not rooted in a specific time or place: a table, some chairs, a swing (favored by Helena), a player piano (poignantly used to invoke the memory of Vanya’s late sister who had been married to Alexander before Helena). 

(Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher Street, vanyaonstage.com, through May 11)

Photo by Julieta Cervantes: Andrew Scott

Ghosts (LIncoln Center Theater)

By Harry Forbes

The first few minutes of director Jack O’Brien’s production of Henrik Ibsen’s once controversial and still provocative 1881 classic had me bracing for my second high concept deconstruction ot the week; the other being Rebecca Frecknall’s defiantly untraditional “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

For at the start of “Ghosts,” the actors shuffle out on stage in street clothes, and casually begin to mumble the first lines of the play. Then again but in a more outgoing manner. And then again until, presto, the lighting changes, and we’re suddenly “in” the play proper with the rest proving itself nicely conventional after all. Why the play needed that prologue, I still haven’t the foggiest notion, but no matter. 

As it happens, I had recently rewatched the 1987 BBC version directed by Elijah Moshinksy with a knockout cast including Judi Dench, Michael Gambon, Freddie Jones, Kenneth Branagh, and Natasha Richardson, and feared this couldn’t measure up by half. But happy to report that O’Brien’s sturdy staging holds its own. And Irish playwright Mark O’Rowe’s adaptation -- first done at the Abbey Theatre a couple of years ago -- is an exemplary one.

The cast here is excellent across the board. Lily Rabe is predictably compelling as the wealthy widow Mrs. Alving who lives on an island off the coast of Norway, and who is about to have an orphanage dedicated to the memory of her late husband. This coincides with the return of her long-absent and now mysteriously enervated son Oswald (Levon Hawke), and a visit from an old family friend Pastor Manders (Billy Crudup) who will officiate at the impending ceremony. Mrs. Alving has lived alone in the house with her housekeeper Regina (Ella Beatty) whose ne’er-do-well father Engstrand (Hamish Linklater) is the orphanage carpenter who wants Regina to return to him and help start some sort of hostel for visiting sailors. 

Into this basic setup, revelations soon abound, in the standard Ibsen way, and without giving any spoilers, as the play is arguably not so well known as some of his other works, suffice to say that incest, venereal disease, infidelity, substance abuse, debauchery, euthanasia,  and blackmail are all part of the whole, as well as all around disparaging of conventional morality. The Manders character  is the self proclaimed moral compass of all that unfolds. 

Rabe’s dry and acerbic delivery makes all her lines land sharply, and Crudup proves an expert sparring partner in Mrs. Alving’s scenes with the sanctimonious Manders. Linklater skillfully walks the line between earnest sincerity and fawning calculation, particularly in his dealings with Manders.  Relative newcomers Hawke and Beatty are excellent, and though I wouldn’t normally mention it, they are perhaps both early enough along in their careers to point out that Hawke is the son of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman; and Beatty, the daughter of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening. They’ve each learned -- or inherited -- their crafts impressively.

Hawke plays his enigmatic part well, and convincingly rises to the high drama of his final scene with Rabe. Beatty is likable and unsentimental when she has to show her mettle.

John Lee Beatty’s simple set establishes the locale beautifully, aided by Japhy Weidenman’s atmospheric lighting, and Scott Lehrer and Mark Bennett’s rain-dominated sound design. A mid-play catastrophic event is particularly well handled by all. Jess Goldstein’s period costumes likewise add to the verisimilitude of the action.

The play runs one hour and 50 minutes without an interval, and rivets your attention throughout.

(Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse; lct.org; through April 26)

Photo by Jeremy Daniel: (l.-r.) Lily Rabe, Billy Crudup

A Streetcar Named Desire (Brooklyn Academy of Music)

By Harry Forbes

Director Rebecca Frecknall’s highly stylized rethinking of Tennessee Williams 1947 classic may not be to all tastes, but there’s much to admire. Of primary interest, of course, is Irish actor Paul Mescal’s assumption of Stanley Kowalski, much praised in London when the production was first mounted in late 2022 and, as we can see now, rightly so. 

He absolutely lives up to advance reports, creating a thoroughly original and menacing Stanley not at all in the Marlon Brando mold, but equally compelling. Mescal’s cries for “Stella!” are uniquely his own, and indeed all the familiar lines register as freshly minted.

He’s perhaps the most satisfying Stanley of my experience, though I’d give a strong nod to Joel Edgerton who played opposite Cate Blachett’s Blanche in 2009 also, as it happens, at BAM. 

The casting on this occasion is diverse in the current fashion, and there’s also superior work from Anjana Vasan as Blanche’s sympathetic sister Stella, and Dwayne Walcott, very touching and real, as Blanche’s gentlemanly suitor Mitch. 

Opinion may be more divided on Patsy Ferran’s individual take on Blanche. Ferran stepped in for injured actress Lydia Wilson prior to the London opening, and was generally warmly embraced by press there.  Far from the genteel fading blonde Southern belle of tradition, the dark-haired, wide-eyed Ferran plays her as an all-out hysteric right from the start, though settles down to a more nuanced portrayal as the play progresses. 

But throughout, her generally flat American cadences can sometimes seem at odds with Williams’ poetic passages. (There are vestiges of a Southern accent but it comes and goes.) And yet, it must be said, the notable scenes still register strongly, and Ferran always gets to the emotional truth of the role: her cat and mouse confrontation with Stanley before he assaults her, the tender and then accusatory scenes with Mitch (“I want magic”), the encounter with the newspaper boy, and the rest.  

There’s no traditional scenery and only minimal props. Rather, designer Madeleine Girling has created a raised platform around which the characters sometimes circle, in Stanley’s case, menacingly. Other cast members occasionally hand props to the players on the platform. Merle Hensel’s costumes are, more or less, suggewtive of the period.

Spurts of high decibel drumming (Tom Penn) dramatically punctuate the action, suggesting not only the sounds of the New Orleans quarter, but Blanche’s agitated state of mind. Much of the ambient sound is intentionally abrasive, as designed by Peter Rice. Lee Curran’s lighting is likewise harsh, as per Frecknall’s concept. There’s also some stylized dancing as in Blanche’s recollections of her late young husband. 

For all this production’s contemporary touches, including a couple of scenes where the cast is drenched in rain, as we’ve seen in so many plays of late, the play still packs a wallop, and earns its ovation at the end.

(Harvey Theater at the BAM Strong, 651 Fulton Street, Brooklyn; bam.org; through April 6)

Photo by Julieta Cervantes: (l.-r.) Paul Mescal, Patsy Ferran