Ruth Falk’s version is shorter than most and considerably ruder. She has kept the samovar and thrown out the reverence.
Why now, and why with these three
The same twenty-two actors are carrying Vanya, The Weir Keeper and The Beggar’s Opera across the same nine weeks. That is not a scheduling accident. Sonya and the weir keeper’s daughter are played by the same actor on consecutive nights, and both plays are about a person who has given a place their whole adult life and is being asked what it was for.
The design
Nothing above head height. After the dam, the audience needs a room, so Vanya plays on a bare thrust with eleven pieces of furniture and a floor that has been sanded back to the boards laid in 1974.
Note from the translator
Every English Vanya I have sat through has been forty minutes longer than the Russian and half as funny. I cut the sighing. The despair is still there — it just does not have time to admire itself.