somewhat+random

Some of the time I was watching the play "Uncle Vanya" I was taking notes, and other times I was so intent upon listening and trying to connect with the characters. However, even at those times, several instances came up where I could not help but writing down an insight from the film. Here, I wanted to discuss the validity of the ideas that I caught from the film, what -- if anything -- Chekhov was saying by putting them into the script, and if anyone noted anything else interesting from the production overall.

Uncle Vanya says to his mother early on, " . . . one eye on the grave, the other looking in the book for the meaning of life." What is the deal with the two of them anyway? I could not exactly catch all the reasons for the tension between them (maybe I'm just dense). Here, Chekhov may be discussing priorities in life and having the characters empathize with us in our confusion as to life's purpose.

Vanya also says that he "let life slip away from me." This is so like what Firs said in __The Cherry Orchard__; therefore its importance should probably be carefully considered. Chekhov wants to show the value of life or maybe to emphasize the feelings of those caught in the tension of the Liberation. Vanya also "enjoyed NOTHING!!" In response, his mother notes that he should have done "real work." Thoughts??

"All we can do is live . . . under the trials fate has sent for us . . . ." ~Sonya woah, //Oedipus --// how much validity does this statement carry? can we trust it coming from sonya? if not, are you saying that sonya is not a reliable character with enough insight and perspective? how much control do we really have in our lives? I like to think that we cannot control the events always but that we can control our actions towards them and our outlook. Living is not "all we can do"; it is //everything//, and that has to be enough.1205200530

The relationship between Vanya and his mother was the one aspect of the movie that did not sit well with me. They were always bickering and in the end it was pretty nasty with the way he was yelling. I know that family members bicker all the time, but there has to be something that is causing this rage. Personally, I think that the mother may have thought that Vanya was wasting away his life. He was sitting in the house doing all of this work and she wanted him to do something with his life. Also, I could not help but notice that when the Professor spoke, Vanya's mother was always smiling and happy. But whenever Vanya spoke, the smile disappeared. Perhaps the mother wanted Vanya to be more like the Professor: successful. He seemed to wealthy and brilliant... and then there was Vanya off in a corner. I believe the mother wished that her son was more like the Professor.

In regards to the "let life slip away from me" quote, this relates so much to the Cherry Orchard. For most of the Cherry Orchard we saw Madame Renevsky and many other characters reminiscing of their lives at the orchard. They spoke of the past and all of their memories. Soon, the orchard is taken away from all of them, their lives are being taken away, their past is being taken away. In the end when Firs died, it was almost as if all life at the orchard died along with him. Chekhov is probably conveying a message that life goes on. Whether it slips away or it dies, it goes away eventually. We have to make a choice on how we want to live our lives. 1205201262

I think that frustration played a big role in the relationship with Vonya and his mother. Both are frustrated--Vonya with lack of meaning in his life and Maman with the failure of the orchard. Frustration just adds tension and I think they just let it out on each other. Maman probably thinks that Vonya isn't giving all he can to the orchard and that is a reason it is failing and Vonya just feels like a waste of space. When people that frustrated live together fighting is nearly guaranteed to ensue.

Is life slipping away a common theme of all Chekovian plays? It was prominent in both Vonya and Cherry Orchard. One of the first notes I wrote down was of both the Doctor and Vonya talking about life slipping away. If I remember correctly, the play opens with the Doctor talking to Nanny about how he feels his life has been slipping away and then led right into Vonya talking about his own life. Life in Russia seems so bleak. Nobody seems to be happy, nobody seems to feel worthwhile. Sonya's speech at the end of the play was heartbreaking. Living only to reach the next life. It's so sad to hear such a young character, even if she is fictional, speak like that. Is this a true portrait of how life was in Russia or is it Chekov trying to teach us lesson? 1205213446

From some of the dialouge and references made by the other characters, I think that Vanya and his mother used to have a great relationship. I think they used to believe in the same things and have the same goals in mind. However, somthing came between them that caused a major rift. Was it Vanya's sister's marriage to the professor? I was thinking that maybe Vanya saw how much his mother admired and doted upon the professor and became jeleous of him and what he stood for. I came to this conclusion because arguments beween Vanya and his mother always seemed to start when the professor was brought up.

I saw that common theme of life getting away from us in the plays, too. Many of the characters seemed to have regrets about life and how they thought they let it pass them by. Was Chekov trying to teach us that one lesson that eveyone talks about, yet no one ever seems able to actually accomplish? We are always being told that we should live life to the fullest and not let it pass us by, but has anyone actually achieved that and can look back on their lives with no regrets? Is this lesson one that can even be learned? 1205296614

I think I mentioned this in a previous thread, but I found the amount of similarities between the two plays to be eerie. I mean, there's obvious tension and strife between the characters in both plays, they both contain people who are struggling with money, family members, illness, etc. They both contain the potential loss of an estate. I was actually surprised at how similar the two plays were. And of course, there's the obvious relation between Vanya's point of view that he "let life slip away" and Firs' extremely similar worldview. This is why I found it so odd that The Cherry Orchard was considered a comedy and Uncle Vanya was considered a drama, because I really can't see the difference between the two. I mean, obviously, there are extreme plot differences, but there are so many similarities between the circumstances and the characters that it gets hard to ignore sometimes.

In another point, I completely agree wtih ADi. I think frustration was not only a major theme in Uncle Vanya, but also in The Cherry Orchard. In Uncle Vanya, people simply can't stand living with one another and they can't stand the fact that they don't enjoy what they've been forced to spend their lives doing. In The Cherry Orchard, people can't stand living with one another/spending time with one another, and they can't stand the fact that their pasts are so screwed up and their futures don't look much better. 1205370540

He lived a life of mediocrity. He might have had a nice job doing something he sorta enjoyed, he might have gotten through all he needed to, he even might have been somewhat successful in his path, but he missed out on too much that he would have liked to have partaken of, so that's why he's so upset. Now that he realizes he needs more for his life to be full, he's already heading towards his grave, which is, why he says that, and why he's become so depressed. Because he wasted his percious life on earth and did nothing but the 'standard' and really didn't enjoy it. We should take his advice, which is part of the movie's message for the viewers: the clock's a ticking, and we are actually still young, so we've got time to save ourselves from that fate. Quite a few others aren't so lucky, and every second, someone's time runs out, so we better do something worthwhile while were're here. We're just wasting our precious time here on earth posting and doing homework right? Well, live a little too! 1205453340

I think that in a way, the Sonya quote answers what Vanya says to his mom (" . . . one eye on the grave, the other looking in the book for the meaning of life"). Maybe the point is that we need to stop worrying so much about where we are going to end up. There is no point in stressing over when and how we will die. We get what we are given. Some things we have absolutely zero control over, whether they be good or poor. It is often the latter, which can be excruciatingly frustrating, but those are the cards we have been dealt. So many things can happen between now and our deaths, so we might as well live in the here and now and make the best of it.

I also don't really agree with the way Vanya says we should look in the book for meaning. Maybe this is true if it is the Bible, but I don't particularly think that that's all we can learn from. I think our experiences have nearly the same importance in our learning. We figure out for ourselves what feels right and wrong, and I guess the books are mostly just good guides...I don't know, I'm just speculating. 1205453498

One source of tension between Vanya and his mother is that his mother seems to like the professor. I believe Vanya made some comment on how she had annotated a bunch of his texts. Vanya, on the other hand, hates the professor as Vanya was forced to waste his life working for him.

The quote: ". one eye on the grave, the other looking in the book for the meaning of life."" refers to the fact that Vanya's mother is old and near death, but at same time, obsessed with the Professor's science publications. This chastisement of his mother is also a chastisement of the professor and his publications, which Vanya feels are garbage, as he is bitter for spending half of his life copying and recopying them.1205469981