Theatre review: Uncle Vanya

Mere months since Chekhov's Vanya last graced a London stage he's back, although this time he's brought the rest of the cast with him too. With Trevor Nunn both adapting and directing this version of Uncle Vanya it's not particularly surprising if it's a bit more traditional - Simon Daw's designs definitely take us to late 19th century rural Russia, and you bet there's a samovar in pride of place centre stage. But Nunn isn't just ticking another classic off his list or indulging in a bout of nostalgia, as the Orange Tree production has elements that give it its own personality. Not least of all in tone: One of Chekhov's bleaker plays, it wasn't even questionably billed as a comedy like many of them, but the blurb here calls it a tragicomedy, and that's something it pulls off. The setting is the country estate that once belonged to Vanya's sister, purchased as a dowry for when she married a St Petersburg academic.

Theatre review: A Day by the Sea

Southwark Playhouse’s publicity is keen to label rediscovered 1950s playwright N C Hunter as “the English Chekhov,” and if A Day by the Sea is a fair representation of his work it’s a comparison he would have been actively seeking. There’s a family and extended group of hangers-on, reuniting at a home in the country; wistful hopes that generations in the future will have eradicated the problems that plague its characters daily; the characters moping around long after the story’s come to a natural end; and even the requisite alcoholic doctor. As a child, Frances Farrar was taken in by the Anson family in Dorset when she was orphaned, but while she remembers her time there happily she more or less lost touch for twenty years after she moved out. Now, widowed from her first husband in World War II and divorced from her second – who then attempted suicide – Frances (Alix Dunmore) is invited back there with her own children for the school holidays, to sit out the scandal.

Theatre review: Dream of Perfect Sleep

Continuing what's been something of a bleak-themed 2014 at the Finborough is a look at dementia and mortality in Kevin Kautzman's Dream of Perfect Sleep. At one time a scholar who traveled the world, Mary (Susan Tracy) is now gradually losing her mind to dementia. Her husband Gene (Martin Wimbush,) having recovered from an unspecified illness a few years back, has now had an incurable relapse. It's not Christmas, but Gene has told Mary it is, and decorated the house accordingly becuase he's invited their children to visit: Insomniac, ex-pill addict Robert (Cory English) and their adopted daughter, the hippie-ish Melissa (Lisa Caruccio Came) are coming to this pretend Christmas Eve because Gene wants to tell them about their parents' failing health, but also how they plan to deal with it: In her more lucid moments Mary has asked that she is not left alone to lose who she is.

Theatre review: Variation on a Theme

The latter years of Terence Rattigan's life saw a decline in his popularity as the Kitchen Sink playwrights knocked him out of favour, and Variation on a Theme had a particularly unfortunate part to play in his story: It was the play Shelagh Delaney saw, and was so unimpressed by it propelled her to try and do better herself. Rattigan would eventually, posthumously, reclaim his place on British stages, with his better-known plays getting plenty of major revivals in recent years, but it takes the Finborough to unearth Variation on a Theme again half a century after it was last seen. And with the play Delaney wrote in response, A Taste of Honey, enjoying a major revival at the National right now, what better time to reevaluate whether Rattigan's offering deserves its ignominious place in history.