Classic Stage Company celebrated the opening night of its production of “Uncle Vanya” last night (read reviews below) and caught the attention of many famous guests, such as Mamie’s “Evening” co-stars Claire Danes and Hugh Dance, who recently got engaged, Jake Gyllenhaal, and “Vanya” stars Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard. Pictures from both the curtain call and the opening night can be found in the Image Library.

With the opening of “Uncle Vanya”, lots of reviews on the play and Mamie’s performance have been published, a collection can be found within this update. The New York Press is full of praise for Mamie – “The only entirely successful part of a nonetheless entertaining evening is Mamie Gummer. As Yelena’s plain stepdaughter Sofya, hopelessly in love with Astrov herself, Gummer gives the production’s one truly affecting performance. Crying actual tears undiluted by laughter, Sofya is the only character who emerges as anything approaching a real person. Unbowed by her rejection by Astrov or her increasingly bleak future, Sofya gamely keeps hoping for a happy ending, despite all evidence to the contrary” – and so is the New York Daily News: “A laser-focused Gummer on the other hand gives the best performance and is a tremendously affecting as the sensitive and, finally, resigned Sonya”. The accolades continue with Bloomberg Arts & Culture – “The potentially best performance is Mamie Gummer’s hapless Sofya, who conveys her Astrov-besotted pathos almost too well, but is misdirected into near-constant lachrymosity rather than the needed smiling through tears, the luminous dedication to religion and work that would make her even more moving.” The San Francisco Chronicle finds the acting troupe “miserable”, but singles Mamie out, writing that “Gummer’s delightful Sonya stands out as a hummingbird of repressed energy and lovesick inner turmoil, longing for Astrov’s smallest attention. Her still-youthful hope that he will someday notice her flutters throughout the production with Gummer’s every yearning glance, clenched fist and subtle facial expressions”. Variety writes that “in Gummer’s delicately shaded perf, Sonya’s vision deepens and darkens as she comes to realize her own chances for love have been corrupted by the “infection” that Yelena has brought into the house.

With today’s opening night for the Classic Stage Company’s “Uncle Vanya”, first reviews and additional information are being published, including a first production still with Mamie Gummer and Peter Sarsgaard. Theatregoers are flies on the wall of the Russian country home of Classic Stage Company’s intimate new production of Uncle Vanya, opening Feb. 12 under the direction of Austin Pendleton. With a set lit by what seems to be moonlight, candles and oil lamps, the new production allows the audience to sit in the shadows, eavesdropping on the unspeakably sad and suffocating Anton Chekhov characters who aren’t at home even when they’re at home. The cast includes Tony Award winner Denis O’Hare as middle-aged Vanya, who has run his late sister’s estate for many years, in service of his professor/brother-in-law’s supposed greatness. The play famously finds Vanya and his worker-bee niece, Sonya (Mamie Gummer), questioning their roles in the house since the recent arrival of the now-retired scholar, Srebryakov (George Morfogen) and his young (dissatisfied) wife, Yelena (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Peter Sarsgaard plays the unhappy country doctor and environmentalist Astrov, who sees the physical world disappearing, and questions his place in it. More first reviews can be found at Playbill and The Villager.