‘Vanya’ taps into humor of ennui Production has awkward spots

If you think your life is boring, meet the residents of Serebriakov Farm. They take walks. They take naps. They drink large quantities of vodka. They have nothing to do, no real desire to do it and wouldn’t know how even if they did have some miraculous wave of motivation. Ah, me. How boring.

But boring isn’t the word for Penobscot Theatre Company’s production of Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,” which features the Serebriakov clan in all its glorious ennui. Running through March 26 at the Bangor Opera House, the show eschews the stuffiness and stiffness that many may associate with Chekhov. Instead, director Nathan Halvorson insists upon the inherent humor of this story about country life, and succeeds in crafting an evening that walks the very fine line between comedy and tragedy. Not surprisingly, all that boredom becomes rather funny, even as the characters are pathetic.

Among Halvorson’s victories in this show is the performance he coaxes out of Doug Meswarb, best known locally for his work as director and actor for local community musicals. As Uncle Vanya, Meswarb engineers a portrait of a man who is both ineffectual and oddly sympathetic. It’s unbearable that you find yourself rooting for him in the end, and it’s a testament to Meswarb’s nuanced performance that you are pulled in. In a play loaded with privileged people bemoaning their individual plights of meaninglessness, Meswarb becomes one of Chekhov’s modern heroes: stuck, rejected, embittered. Only death can save him – and the wait may kill him.

Meswarb’s closest and most delicious compatriot and rival – as a character and as an actor – is the dapper Franklin Boyd. As Astrov, the philosophical doctor who cares for the play’s aged patriarch and then seduces his aimless young wife, Boyd raises the stakes when ever he’s in the scene. As with Meswarb, he’s right on the edge of overdoing it but never takes the plunge. Indeed, whenever he shows up, the energy is high, the humor is cocky, and he yanks his cast members into his bag of tricks.

That’s particularly true for Mikki Jordan, as the indolent, beautiful wife of the professor (played robustly by Miller Lide). Jordan’s broad smiles and sweeping gestures belie the languor of her character, whose intellectual listlessness is meant to zap the energy of every person onstage. Instead, she shows her inner sleepiness only when she actually is sleepy – after spending a night caring for her sick husband – rather than when she has no reason to be, which is when she should display her persistent

pointlessness. She’s just too cheerful most of the time, and it works only when she’s flirting with Boyd or conspiring with the stoic Lacey Martin, as Sonya, her same-age but unattractive stepdaughter.

A.J. Mooney (Marina) and Phil Price (Waffles) help create a mood of rural-moral judgment. Mary Jacobs, as Vanya’s elderly mother, keeps her minifeminist outburst so far in the background, she’s hardly noticeable.

While there are awkward moments in Paul Schmidt’s translation – for instance, none of the actors knows quite what to do with the occasional monologues – the production has stark appeal. Even as Halvorson injects it with alacrity, there’s an inner darkness that rises from Matt Guminski’s lighting in deep shades of heavy color. Although Lex Liang’s set of haunting yet cartoonish cut-outs and darkly painted moveable pieces is spare, it sometimes finds itself in layers of clutter. The same cannot be said for his period costumes that range elegantly from Yelena’s lacy gowns to Waffles’ tattered overcoat.

The triumph of this production is that it defies at the same time it defines the weightedness of the characters in “Uncle Vanya.” They bend toward the earth like shadows that are broken, yet the production itself has an airy forward motion to it. In the end, you have to laugh because the only other option is to grab Uncle Vanya’s gun and put them all out of their misery.

Penobscot Theatre Company will present “Uncle Vanya” at 2 p.m. Wednesday, March 22, at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 23, at 8 p.m. Friday, March 24, and Saturday, March 25; and at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 26, at the Bangor Opera House. For information, call 942-3333 or visit www.penobscottheatre.org. Alicia Anstead can be reached at 990-8266 and aanstead@bangordailynews.net.