Uncle Vanya is maddening. In the sense that fatalism and stitch-inducing satire scramble in an evocative production about wasteful passions and hair-pulling frustrations. The Melbourne Theatre Company honours Anton Chekov’s 1897 play, not as entertainment to be distantly observed, but as an immersive experience that lures audiences into a trap of beguiling hierarchies and underwhelming meaninglessness. 

Director Anne-Louise Sarks partners with Joanna Murray-Smith, whose adaptation breathes fresh air to Chekov’s text with Australian accents and the occasional profanity. Exploring banality, dissatisfaction, unrequited love, ignorance and power, the depths of experience are commanded by Sarks. Still, the production maintains the original’s scrutiny of ignorant upper classes.  

Vanya’s first f-bomb shatters the ice. My friend jolted in her seat: “I thought this was meant to be serious!” But before long, the audience settles into the informalities, becoming willing participants in the hyperbolic comedies and tragic desperation before them.  

Very little actually occurs in the plot. Simply, Vanya (Daniel Henshall) and his niece, Sonya (Phillipa Northeast), navigate hosting Professor Serebryakov (Shaun Micallef), in all his self-inflated arrogance. With only a love square between Sonya, Doctor Astrov (Fayssal Bazzi), Yelena (Catherine Văn-Davies) and Vanya creating the obvious complication, the play is otherwise unextraordinary. The setting firmly rests at the family estate, trapping us within unbearably dysfunctional family dynamics. So, it is in the individual performances—grappling with life's cruel realities and glamourised falsehoods—that the play soars.  

Henshall’s portrayal was curious. His darting eyes evoke a troubled spirit effectively, but at times his delivery had me doubting his connection to the themes of the play. A conversation between Vanya and Astrov prompted my chest to anxiously tighten as Henshall began to timidly stutter. Regardless of whether it was intended or just opening night jitters, the performance was exposed and the plausible experience weakened. Nonetheless, Henshall was enjoyably wry in his attempts to romance Yelena or jeer Professor Serebryakov.  

Northeast played Sonya as a dazzling ball of energy in this, her MTC debut. Her command of body movement conveys everything from awkward self-consciousness to overwhelming feelings of love, each equally crucial in deepening audience investment. Although overtly expressive, nothing is forced. Northeast purely portrays Sonya as a young woman daring to hope in fading prospects.  

To balance such emotion, Sarks executes a sharp vision of simplicity, leaving the set proudly exposed. Walking into the theatre, there is no curtain to conceal the orchard of trees sprouting from the stage. Instead, we are immediately thrown in as a production crew member scatters autumn leaves at the base of each trunk. We are presented with a curated reality that the play begins to dismantle and rot.  

Northeast as Sonya sweeps the stage as another crew member scatters more leaves over her efforts, opening the show with laughter from the audience. Finally, crew members are receiving the appreciation they deserve. Otherwise, the leaves organically filter down the trees as Nanny’s (Evelyn Krape) pipe is lit (by a crew member!) in vapid stillness. Tobacco wafted over the theatre and for the first time in my life I didn’t despise the scent as my senses were bathed. I was completely integrated into the play’s setting, threatened by a harsh storm season and equally tumultuous family engagements.  

Here, Telyeghin or ‘Waffles’ (Don Bridges) is the standout for his, albeit superficial, optimism for life’s simplicities. His stiff shuffles across the stage mark a life of diligent labour and unfaltering loyalty—the steady calm to Nanny’s previous infidel passions. Bridges warms the stage with arpeggiated chords and gentle melodies on his wooden guitar.  

This production oozes vulnerability. A lack of wings bares stage lights and a splayed assortment of wooden chairs around the stage’s perimeter. There is nowhere to hide, nothing to offer any relief from constant perception. Consequently, Yelena and Doctor Astrov’s vain attempts to conceal their brief affair, or Vanya's admittance of his frustrations toward the leeching professor, become even more exposed and singular. Meanwhile, costumes hint at commedia dell’arte conventions where clothing offered distinct characteristics and stereotypes to the characters. Set and costume designer Dann Barber dressed Vanya and Sonya in dirty, sun-bleached linens to mark their labour and remained lowly status. The professor however, donned in an extravagant three-piece suit embodies his grandiose and fluffy persona.  

Shaun Micallef’s cocky portrayal of Professor Serebryakov was almost reminiscent of his contributions to Thank God You’re Here. Evidently, the audience did fall for his charms, cackling at every wink, stride and ironic delivery. As we enjoyed his troublesome extravaganza and tiresome revelations—“We’re all going to die!”—Vanya stands isolated in a corner growing increasingly exasperated.   

However, we ultimately return to the orchard as the production’s most impressionable motif. The trees are mentioned in the first act by the doctor in his conservation efforts and hope for a better future. Yet as the characters’ dynamics grow more volatile, the storm rages on and relationships break down, the trees lay slumped and discarded for the second act.  

Only one tree remains standing, and it is this one that Vanya turns his rage toward during an explosive meltdown. With every tug and punch, Vanya’s destructive behaviour is unable to be rewarded by death. The tree remains bare, alone and withered, much like Henshall’s titular character.  

The environment bears the consequences of mankind’s selfish desires, just as we suffer at the hands of one another. Professor Serebryakov, Yelena and Doctor Astrov leave with their high-social standing and dignity unscathed. All those left behind are left in the meaningless aftermath of the insipid hullabaloo. In the play’s final moments, we reach the same devastating conclusions of life’s meaninglessness as Sonya does. Once again, Northeast bleeds with an infectious emotion.  

After a much-deserved standing ovation, we shuffled out of the auditorium and found ourselves gifted with Uncle Vanyabranded seedlings. Seedlings to be tended to and to flourish despite the harsh environments of 2026’s Australia. The promotional poster shows Yelena ‘watering’ Vanya, perhaps a parallel with us producing or not producing ‘fruit’, depending on the fertiliser given and active tending to.    

As a tree firms its roots after a storm, the characters of Uncle Vanya and any fatalistic audience members can only deepen their standing and wait for the storm of life to pass over them too. That is, until death welcomes with bittersweet nostalgia and a bottle of vodka.