Onkel Wanja

Josefstädter Strasse 26

1080 Wien

 

German by Angela Schanelec
After a translation by Arina Nestieva

If you don't have a real life, then you just take the illusion.

“You have to create a work!” Idleness as a fundamental evil – in Uncle Wanja, failed existences come together that are capable of self-reflection, but still only see themselves trapped in their hopelessness: Wanja has to realize that he has sacrificed his life to a false ideal . The supposedly brilliant professor, the husband of his deceased sister, whose estate he has managed for years together with his niece Sonja, reveals himself to be an insignificant theorist, Jelena, the professor's young wife. has long known that their love did not last. Sonja suffers from her unrequited feelings for Astrow; he, in turn, is unhappy in love with Jelena, but he hides behind his views in the midst of this resigned mood that the property should be sold - Wanja reacts with vehemence.

But it is precisely in this mood of disillusionment and resignation that Chekhov recognizes comic potential and creates wonderful, absurd and ridiculous situations. The master of depicting the human mental state shows us figures that hide the essential behind superficial and trivial things. Chekhov's doctor Astrov, who energetically problematized the deforestation, was also one of the first representatives of ecological thought in literary history.

(Source: josefstadt.org)