Along with Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya is credited as one of Chekhov's masterpieces and a significant precursor of modern drama. Set on a country estate in late nineteenth century Russia, Uncle Vanya is in part a study of the enervation of Russian middle-class provincial life. The major dynamics between the characters themselves are centred on two obsessive love affairs that lead nowhere and a flirtation that brings disaster. Mixing the tragic and the absurd and dealing with a form that allows for ambiguity and contradiction, Uncle Vanya has been deemed "the first modernist play". (David Lan)
"It is the element of might-have-been in Chekhov's characters that makes their sense of waste so tragic ? I know of no more moving climax in world drama." Guardian
Definitive translation by acclaimed playwright Michael Frayn
Methuen Student Editions are expertly annotated texts of a wide range of plays. Contains the complete text of the play, the volume contains a chronology of the playwright's life and work; an introduction giving the background to the play; a discussion of various interpretations; and notes on individual words and phrases in the text