Uncle Vanya [Paperback]

Along with Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya is credited as one of Chekhov's masterpieces and a significant precursor of modern drama. Set on a country estate in late nineteenth century Russia, Uncle Vanya is in part a study of the enervation of Russian middle-class provincial life. The major dynamics between the characters themselves are centred on two obsessive love affairs that lead nowhere and a flirtation that brings disaster. Mixing the tragic and the absurd and dealing with a form that allows for ambiguity and contradiction, Uncle Vanya has been deemed the first modernist play . (David Lan)Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) first turned to writing as a medical student at Moscow University, from which he graduated in 1884. Among his early plays were short monologues (The Evils of Tobacco, 1885), one-act farces such asThe Bear,The ProposalandThe Wedding(1888-89) and the 'Platonov' material, adapted by Michael Frayn asWild Honey. The first three full-length plays to be stage,Ivanov(1887),The Wood Demon(1889) andThe Seagull(1896) were initially failures. But the Moscow Arts Theatre's revival ofThe Seagulltwo years later was successful and was followed by his masterpieces,Uncle Vanya(1889),Three Sisters(1901), andThe Cherry Orchardin 1904, the year of his death.