Uncle Vanya

In 2022, the performance was awarded by the main jury members for stage mastership at the international theater festival "Sirenas". 

According to the jury members, this production is special for its dramatic coherence, the director’s sharp wit and the extravagant acting style of the entire ensemble.

Jury’s constitution: Didier Juillard (Odeon Theatre in Paris, France), Mojca Jug (Bunker Performing Arts Center, Slovenia), Luisa Hedo (Madrid Autumn Festival, Spain), Iliana Dimadi (theater expert, Greece), Pierre Thys (Head of the National Theater of Wallonia in Brussels, Belgium).

In 2022, Uncle Vanya by The State Small Theatre of Vilnius was awarded four Golden Stage Crosses for best directing, male and female leading roles and costume design.

One of four plays by the Russian author Anton Chekhov, “Uncle Vanya” was written in 1896 and staged in many theaters of Europe. The author himself calls this play “Scenes from Country Life in Four Acts”. It is one of the most emotional plays of all time where author depicted the very essence of human life, the greatest desires, and the bitterest disappointments. In this play about wasted human lives interweave various genres – comedy, drama, and tragedy. It is well known that A. Chekhov is not only a subtle psychologist but also a master of undercurrents. The play staged at The State Small Theatre of Vilnius gives you even more. Here the celebration of life erupts like a loud firework. Rejected love, unfulfilled hopes, and bitterness of dreams leave a lump in the throat.

The play was created together with an international team at The State Small Theatre of Vilnius. The director Tomi Janežič is an expert in dramaturgy by Anton Chekhov. He constantly returns to his plays where absurd was masterfully mixed with realities of life. T. Janežič is well known in Europe for his talent to create emotionally touching but at the same time intellectual performances. Even though Tomi Janežič’s works are filled with exceptional directorial interpretations, he is a true experimenter and a researcher of human nature. Only to stage a play isn’t the most important thing for him. The most important thing is to find a connection with people: actors, all creative team, and finally – the public. During rehearsals, the director uses the psychodrama method to mobilize the actor and to create a safe environment for opening up and creating.

Janežič is staging plays and presenting lectures in Italy, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, and other countries. His plays are traveling all over the world and presented in the greatest European theater festivals (Wiener Festwochen, Avignon, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, MESS, etc.). The director has been awarded with several international theater awards. He also received the “Golden Mask” from the international BITEF theater festival award. T. Janežič is not only a director, but also a professor at the Academy for Theatre, Radio, Film, and Television (AGRFT) in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and a psychodrama psychotherapist. He is one of the founders and the artistic director of the Studio for Research on the Art of Acting.

Tomi Janežič, director

“I am not sure if the world needs one more staged play written by Chekhov. It is more interesting to find a connection with Chekhov, with history and roles. It has never been as important to stage “Uncle Vanya” for one more reason – the widespread ideology of success. We only speak of success, being happy, luck, and achieved goals... The pressure is huge. The play “Uncle Vanya” depicts an opposite situation. We can experience failure, but accept it as a normal thing. Moreover, to show that the ideology of success and winning is just too artificial.”

Dovilė Zavedskaitė, theatre critic

“You want to look at that small but real kitchen in the depths of the stage, for that is where the Chekhov-like life failures take place. Here you want to listen to Sonya singing, and it depicts her even more as a naked character. Here you want to watch how the actor – it seems without any effort – steps out of the character, stops acting, and stays on the outside of the theatrical costume. Probably this theatre space, a certain method of actors and the director is the most interesting trick of “Uncle Vanya”.

And yet <...> Tomi Janežič’s Uncle Vanya <...> has become a very watchable production. No one here is hiding the fact that what they are doing is theatre; there is a constant but unobtrusive exchange between the audience and the stage. There is an open flirtation with the audience, artistic decisions are made as if on the spot.”

Audronė Girdzijauskaitė, theatre critic

This is a bold production. The director has ruthlessly castigated and declassed the section of society depicted by Chekhov. Would they have ended up in that pit if they had lived up to our time? Or perhaps the director is painting such a bleak picture for our society, for us? In any case, I accept his drastic, thought-provoking version. I also accept it because all the actors of the Small Theatre worked for the sake of the production - for the sake of the whole piece.

Additional information:
Ages 16+: explicit content, smoking and smokes.

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Tours, festivals: 

2023 – International theatre festival REFLEX, Sfântu Gheorghe (Romania).

2023 – International theatre festival Wiener Festwochen (Austria).