Uncle Vanya

Ole Blegvad, 2026 (translated from Danish)

Uncle Vanya: the performance begins in darkness, to the sound of pigs grunting and squealing.

In Yana Ross's production, ordinary people step onto the stage with their doubts and their longing: the quiet existences of everyday life. There are no heroes here, no great climaxes. What prevails above all is recognition.

That is quite remarkable, given that Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya dates from 1897.

It is not only one of the most frequently staged plays in the world. It is also one of the classics most often moved away from its original setting, a Russian country estate. New interpretations have moved the estate into contemporary office spaces and into a fighting arena. After Covid-19 many productions were marked by the lockdowns, and after Russia invaded Ukraine, war became the theme. Or, like Louis Malle's film Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), the action takes place in an artistic laboratory.

In its 2026 version, directed by the Lithuanian director Yana Ross, the Royal Danish Theatre has chosen to move the story to a contemporary Danish pig farm.

Everything in the production has been given a strongly Danish adaptation. It is a rather clever move to place Uncle Vanya on a contemporary and topical agenda, which makes the performance a gift to a developing and sustainable art of drama. (One almost wants to believe that Yana Ross worked with a crystal ball, since Uncle Vanya premiered in the same week as the end of an election campaign in which pig farming had been used as bait for votes.)

A slurry tank and dysfunctional relationships

The performance begins in darkness, to the sound of pigs grunting and squealing. The curtain rises, and the gallery of characters quickly gathers on stage in the German artist Bettina Meyer's beautiful and interesting set. On the left of the stage stands a giant slurry tank; on the right, a room reminiscent of a pigsty.

“Life is boring, stupid and full of strange people. That makes a person strange,” says the disillusioned doctor Mikael, who has just come back from a surgery where he treated a group of patients from one of the farms that use illegal immigrants as labour.

Inventive modernity

Because of its flexibility, the original text of Uncle Vanya has been interpreted in many different ways. This version brings out both Chekhov's funny and his bleak sides, and also leaves room for sadness, a sense of longing, reflection and melancholy.

But the new version also pays great attention to strange and inventive details. There are quite a few of them, and together they help make the performance particularly worth seeing. One of the first funny ideas is the scene in which Helena has to cross the muddy yard. She is a beautiful city woman who is bored in the countryside. But because Vanja is so in love with her, he builds a path out of wooden pallets, cardboard boxes and Jens Jensen's back so that Helena can reach the room without getting dirty.

There is also a rather funny scene in which the relationships between the characters are revealed through the old “love game” of truth, dare or consequence.

There is an almost absurd scene in which Helena asks Mikael why he values nature more than people, after which he launches into a long lecture about a degenerate world while Helena tries in vain to win him over. Meanwhile, in the background, next to the slurry tank, a giant elephant descends from the loft.

Jonas Vest's impressive sound design, incidentally, uses more recent music, including songs by Simon & Garfunkel, Kate Bush and Kae Tempest.

There is constant play in the theatre space. At times it becomes a little too much, but then one remembers the old cliché: better too much than too little. These inventive ideas help give Uncle Vanya a modern life in 2026.

Completely precise acting

Uncle Vanya is a classic about a dull life, about a lost life, about what a happy life really means, about the tragedy of everyday life and unfulfilled love that leads to despair, or the wrong love, about disappearing nature, about people in relationships and, above all, about the dream of a different life, or the dream of what life could have been.

All these questions and dilemmas about life fill Uncle Vanya in one way or another. As in most of Chekhov's plays, there is hardly any drama.

There is a little romantic intrigue, but otherwise no great catastrophes. One day follows another. In Chekhov's work the tragedy is not what happens, but what does not happen: a life lived wrongly. In Yana Ross's production, ordinary people step onto the stage with their doubts and their longing, the quiet existences of everyday life.

This unfolds through seven roles on stage. There are funny lines and, as mentioned, interesting and inventive theatrical ideas, but it is the seven actors on stage who make everything sparkle and shine. In the end, the performance is made by the actors' expressions, their movements and their interplay.

Huge applause for Nicolas Bro (Vanja), Mathilde Arcel (Sonja), Jens Jørn Spottag (the professor), Sofia Nolsøe (Helena), Morten Brovn (the former farm owner), Mads Rømer Brolin-Tani (the doctor) and Tina Gylling Mortensen (Maria). In these times of qualifying rounds, their acting would send them straight to the World Cup.

Uncle Vanya confirms the relevance of the classics

Over the years much has been said and written about the right way to interpret Uncle Vanya. One can say, somewhat pragmatically, that fortunately Chekhov's masterpiece was not published with an instruction manual.

The director Yana Ross has gradually become a true Chekhov expert. Her debut was precisely Uncle Vanya, at Uppsala City Theatre in 2014. Since then she has staged Ivanov, Three Sisters, The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard in several different languages. This evening's performance is Yana Ross's first production in Denmark.

She can be proud of it. Indeed, her production confirms that we must preserve our dramatic classics, but gladly with a touch of renewal.