Bitef

some of it - including, unfortunately, the last few seconds of the play - is predictable schmaltz. All of it is a production the likes of which we have not seen and are not likely to see again on stage in Chicago. □ Richard Christiansen, Chicago Tribune, 1988.

Uncle Vanya Uncle Vanya was published for the first time in A. Chekhov’s collection of works Plays (1892) and immediately gained popularity among the provincial theatres, which greatly surprised the author. My ‘Uncle Vanya', - wrote A. Chekhov to his brother Mihail at that time, - is travelling all over the province and everywhere is a success. One never knows where one gains and where one loses. I did not expect anything

from this play. Today this play has not lost its upto-dateness. It has travelled round many theatres of the USSR and the world. In Lithuania Unde Vanya was staged twice - in the Vilnius and Siauliai Drama theatres in 1954. So the performance at the State Youth Theatre of the Lithuanian SSR is the third one. In the creative biography of the director E. Nekrosius this is his second meeting with A. Chekhov’s dramaturgy; in 1979 he staged Ivanov in the Kaunas Drama Theatre. We should not like to deprive the spectator of the thrill he experiences when watching the play for the first time nor betray all its secrets beforehand. We will confine ourselves only to some remarks instead and let it be the visiting - card of the performance. Ih A. Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya the motif of lost time and ruined life sounds especially strong and painful. Likewise strong and painful does it sound in the play and the dramatic fates of the characters. But the producer E. Nekrosius simultaneously brings out another theme which is