Chekhov's tragicomedy, replete with the kinds of characters we have come to know as Chekhovian, incorporates unrequited loves and a murder plot while exploring the social roles of women and the notion of progress. In Uncle Vanya, the family lives in a country home, working all their hours to support their favoured 'son in law', who is called Serebryakov (George Morfogen), the widower of the family's daughter. Vanya (Denis O'Hare), Sonya (Mamie Gummer), Mother and the old family nurse live in the countryside ekeing out an existence and sending the rest to their son in law (Peter Sarsgaard) in the city. When the son in law comes to visit, he brings his new wife with him Yelena (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a beautiful but insipid woman who is many years his junior.

Cast & Characters: Dennis O'Hare (Uncle Vanya), Peter Sarsgaard (Michael Lvovich), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Yelena), Mamie Gummer (Sonya), George Morfogen (Srebryakov)
View the gallery for more pictures Keep your eye on the excellent Mamie Gummer, who shines as the doomed, chipperly dispossessed Sonya. Gummer grasps the giddy side of Chekhov, and does her own little dance on the chasm’s edge - but she never tips into the abyss, never forgets the scene she’s in, whom she’s talking to, and what job she’s doing. Part of that is the role, of course, but a great deal of it is Gummer. At the play’s crepuscular conclusion, she’s the one real person in the room- which makes her fate, as the survivor, the endurer, all the more pitiable. "I have faith," she weeps, "I have faith!" And, for a half-second, we do, too.

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.

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.

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 potentially best performance is Mamie Gummer’s hapless Sofya (usually Sonya), 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.

Among this mostly miserable group, Mamie 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. "Having an intelligent Yelena like Maggie makes her character more worthy of everyone's admiration. In addition to having beauty and elegance, she has ideas and that makes the play more complicated than if she's just a trophy wife. Her struggle with Vanya becomes one of more intellectual rigor. And Mamie is phenomenal. I'm ashamed to say I didn't know her or her work before this, but we get along famously. She's funny and smart and very right." Classic Stage Company official website
Uncle Vanya Entry at Wikipedia
Maggie Gyllenhaal Online Fansite on the actress