Stage

I won't compare this version to Louis Malle's film Vanya on 42nd Street, although it compares pretty well. That movie may have set a whole generation's English standard for the play. The Holy Theater does a very straight rendition with period costumes and an uncomplicated set, not even bothering, like the film, to pull the script into the present day. Earll Kingston plays a croaking, cantankerous Professor Serebryakov; Michael Patrick Gaffney does an entertainingly drunk Dr. Astrov; and Valerie Weak is especially good as a halting and love-struck Sonya. Sometimes the show is so straight it falls flat -- the chemistry between the characters often feels slack, and Stephanie Taylor's Yelena could be crueler than she is -- but to do Chekhov honestly is still to do a powerful play. Since he writes about the destruction of common hopes, Chekhov is more terrifying, in his way, than Godzilla, or even William Burroughs. Maybe that's why audiences avoid him.

-- Michael Scott Moore