Jeff Cohen’s Uncle Jack, staged in 1999, places the characters, stories, and themes of Uncle Vanya in contemporary West Virginia. Thanks in part to Cohen’s sensitive direction of an extraordinary cast, that production remains the most realized Vanya I think I’ve ever seen; certainly Cohen finds, in his script, the deep humanity that characterizes Chekhov’s work, and presents it in an accessible and resonant way for a modern American audience.
JEFF COHEN was born in 1957 in Baltimore, Maryland. He is a director, playwright, and an acting teacher. He was previously the artistic director/founder of both the RAPP Arts Center (1985-1990) and the Worth Street Theater Company (1995-2005), and is currently the artistic director of Dog Run Repertory Theatre Company. Cohen was also the producer and director of the Tribeca Playhouse Stage Door Canteen for Ground Zero workers following the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, for which he received a Drama Desk Award.
EXCERPT
ASHE Alright, I hear you. The Doctor is in. Tell me what’s ailin’you.
JACK No.
ASHE No?
JACK Nothing to say.
ASHE Don’t be that way, now. I ain’t in the mood, Jonathon.
JACK Jonathon?
ASHE Tell me what’s happening. Fill me in.
JACK You can see for yourself well enough. All that’s happening is that Chairman Alexander Cough-Cough-Cough- Lan, retiree of Columbia the gem of the ocean University has arrived. And look what he’s done to me. Made me fat and lazy and grumbing and grousing like some old woman at a DAR meeting. I’m takin’ after dear old Momma who, by the way, is getting worse and worse. You know what she’s doin’ now? She’s chairwoman of the West Virginia chapter of the Draft Hillary movement! Pounding away on her PC, sending emails to everyone. And when she’s not doin’ that she’s obsessin’ over her nine eleven conspiracy theories. Hell, Robert Byrd won’t even return her calls anymore. She’s drivin’ EVERYONE crazy.
ASHE That’s not new, Jack. That’s same old same old. What’s up with the Professor?
JACK (With a German accent) Herr professor! Ach, you vant to know vhat’s up mit Herr Professor. (his own voice) He’s the short version: He’s decided to return to his dead wife’s estate to write the crowning achievement of his pathetic and unbelievable career. He’s Thoreaux. And this here is his Walden!
ASHE He’s moved in?
JACK Has he ever.
ASHE And he’s a writer?
JACK So the rumor goes.
ASHE What’s he writing?
JACK How the Hell do I know? Like he consults me on it. Mother’s all atwitter because it’s doubtless some great opus on contemporary art. Some definitive paean to the 1980s Art In America crew, you know – Longo, Salle, Fischl, Sherman…
ASHE Who?
JACK EXACTLY! He bought twenty cases of paper from the Office Depot in Morgantown, they delivered it in a semi for crissakes. That’s fifty reams a carton. That’s five hundred sheets a ream. That’s five hundred thousand pieces of paper! That’s what’s killing your beloved forests, Michael! And for what? Nothing! He should forget the art crap and just write his autobiography. What a phenomenon that would be! He’d sell 3 copies at least. How would it go --- a retired professor. No, not graphic enough. Here we go – a phlegmatic old fossil. A dried up fish. I like that. A sort of stuffed academic old trout. Groaning and grumbling incessantly about his arthritis and his liver and his rheumatism and his phlebitis. But that’s just hypochondria. What’s really eating at him is envy. Envy! And frustration that anyone in the know knows what a dried up old hack he really is! So how did he get here in the first place? Here’s the set-up: He lives on income from the estate of his first wife that gives him his New York City lifestyle that enabled him to entrap his gorgeous child of a second wife. And then he moves back here to live, second wife in tow, with the first wife’s family – and his daughter that he hasn’t given a crap about in a good fifteen years. And it’s not like he wanted to move back here. Oh no – he’s such a nothing that he couldn’t afford to stay in New York after Columbia gave him the boot! This ass is forever moaning about what a bad shake life has given him when the fact is he’s the single luckiest man in the goddamn world! This reptile hit the jackpot. Just think about it: Who was the sonuvabitch before he turned his Don Juan oily charm on my poor kid sister? A nobody, that’s who. Lehigh University for crissakes! But then he seduces my sister, marries into my family, and suddenly he’s the son-in-law of a Senator. Now, lo and behold, academic degrees are conferred upon him like ribbons on a fat sow at a state fair. Professor at Columbia University for crissakes? Using my daddy’s name to make his good-for-nothing way in the world. But, you know what, Michael?
ASHE What?
JACK None of it matters.
ASHE Why not?
JACK Because luck is no substitute for talent. And of that little item our Professor Fish is singularly bereft. For twenty-five years the man’s been lecturing and writing about art which just happens to be a subject he knows nothing about. For twenty-five years he’s been riding the backs of the dealers and the poseurs and the investors like a jockey on a nag, writing with all the integrity of a racing form tout at the track, chewing over other people’s ideas, spouting off with his thesaurus about Modernism, Post Modernism, Post Post Modern Modernism and any other goddamn label he can attach to that swill and the Village Voice prints it and Mother dutifully keeps his scrapbook and for twenty-five years he’s been lecturing and writing about the kind of crap that no intelligent person would ever take seriously and which ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of the world couldn’t give a good goddamn about anyway!!! Twenty-five years of chasing his own shadow, primping in his own goddamn mirror, building himself up in his own mind to excel at the one thing the he does better than anybody else on earth which is his own goddamn, presumptuous, condescending, narcissistic ARROGANCE! And now, when it’s all said and done, the truth comes out at last, the truth that Alexander Coughlan has to run all the way to the hills of West Virginia to avoid – he’s a nobody. A nothing. Absolute. Utter. Obscure. Failure. Who cares about him, Michael? Who cares? NOBODY does! Strutting around like a goddamn peacock for twenty-five years, living off the fruit of my daddy’s reputation, living off the fruit of my labor! And now, at the moment of truth, now when it’s all come crashing down and he comes yelping up to my front door with his tail between his legs, do you wanna know what really burns me up?
ASHE What?
JACK The bastard won’t even admit to it!!! We still have to run around playing his little game. He struts around here like God Almighty Himself and expects us to bend and kneel and genuflect in his presence! Talk about CHUTZPAH!
ASHE You don’t want to know what I think.
JACK Yeah, what do you think?
ASHE I think you’re jealous.
JACK Well of course I am! Michael, spend a little bit of time with him and you will be too. Take one thing, look at his track record with women. The geriatic Casanova. Jesus Michael, my own sister fell for him like a ton of bricks – she was such a treasure, sweet, kind delicate, beautiful – she had suitors groveling at her feet by the bus load. She worshipped him, it was indecent how she doted on him. She burned for him --- makes me blush just to remember. Christ, look at Mother. The same thing. How does he do it! She nearly faints everytime she gets a whiff of him. And that’s not the end of it, it’s only the beginning, because now he’s captured the Goddess herself – now he’s ensnared perfection. Guess how they met ---
ASHE How?
JACK She pursued him! Can you believe it? She begged him to to be his assistant. It’s not fair!! She longed to be under his tutelage. Why on earth does a former runway model give up every opportunity for the likes of him? Tell me.
ASHE I have no idea. Is she… you know?
JACK Faithful?
ASHE Yeah.
JACK I’m afraid so.
ASHE Really?
JACK It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? And on top of that she gets all moral about it too. She believes that ‘to cheat on your husband is immoral.’ But that makes no sense! I mean to throw away all of that beauty on, what? A dead flounder! That’s somehow noble? That kills me!
»
Anthony P. Pennino’s Story of an Unknown Man is taken mostly from a Chekhov story of that title that was unfamiliar to me until I saw this play; but there’s more to it than that, because Pennino has added elements from other Chekhov pieces and even placed Chekhov himself in the thick of the thing.
ANTHONY P. PENNINO was born in New Jersey in 1967, and raised in Princeton. He earned a B.A. and M.A. in English, and an M.F.A. in Playwriting, all from Columbia University. He also earned a Ph.D. in Dramatic Literature from the University of London. In 2005, Pennino received a Fellowship from the New Jersey Council for the Arts. He is a professor of English at New Jersey City University, and lives in Hoboken, NJ.
EXCERPT
KARP Where are you trying to go?
SASHA North.
KARP Nothing much north of here except Russia proper.
DORA My God, Karp, they’re on the run.
SASHA No, no there are some farms about thirty kilometers from here that appreciate a good play and….
DASHENKA Sasha.
YEVSTIGNEI Your friend is right. We are on the run. Look, we were just down from Moscow to perform a play. Who knew that fighting would break out again? Or that a colonel with the Interior Ministry would say that we were terrorists?
EPHIM Terrorists?
KARP Well, over there is a Russian Army barracks. And over there, a camp of guerrillas. I wouldn’t advise going either way. If you go straight, you shouldn’t have too much trouble. Unless they’re fighting. Or they’re hungry. Oh, and watch out for the minefield.
YEVSTIGNEI Thank you. We won’t bother you any longer.
DASHENKA Yevstignei.
YEVSTIGNEI No, Dashenka.
DASHENKA You have to ask. It’s been four days.
YEVSTIGNEI I’m sorry to bother you again.
DORA What is it?
YEVSTIGNEI We haven’t eaten in four days.
DORA You should have thought about that before you crossed a colonel with the Interior Ministry.
YEVSTIGNEI And we couldn’t help noticing how good your food looks.
DASHENKA It’s been awhile since any of us have seen sausages. Any kind of sausages.
SASHA Anything to drink but muddy water.
KARP I’m sorry. We have so little.
[Unseen by the others, CHEKHOV enters upstage.]
YEVSTIGNEI It looks like so much. To us.
EPHIM The soldiers already took most of our winter stores.
YEVSTIGNEI Isn’t there anything you can do?
KARP Do you have any money? And not rubles, U.S. greenbacks. Any coats for winter? Wood for the fire? Anything at all? Then, I’m sorry. We have to think of ourselves first.
YEVSTIGNEI That’s all anyone tells us. That they’re thinking about themselves.
KARP Do you have a better idea?
CHEKHOV You could perform a play.
DORA A play?
DASHENKA A play? Yes, a play. A comedy or a romance. A tragedy or a heroic tale. We can play anything that you desire. We still have magic.
DORA A play?! What good will a play do? There’s still a whole winter ahead of us.
KARP Sssh. It’s an interesting idea. Have you seen a play, Dora?
DORA Of course. My father always took us into Grozny when I was a little girl to see what new travelling company was in town. I miss them. But we have to be practical, Karp.
EPHIM I’ve never seen a play.
KARP A play. Why not? But we decide how good it is. And only if it is good enough, then may you eat with us.
YEVSTIGNEI Agreed. What would you like? Tell us. We can perform anything. Sasha.
[SASHA walks along and does a pratfall. EPHIM laughs.]
KARP Not a comedy. Life is funny enough as it is.
EPHIM Aw.
SERGEI How true. But what about a most excellent tragedy? “ I have of late – but wherefore I know not – lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory….”
KARP No, no, no not Shakespeare.
YEVSTIGNEI You don’t like Shakespeare?
KARP Oh, I like him well enough. But I find that actors can’t perform him without getting long-winded.
SERGEI “….this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, the brave o’erhanging firmament….”
YEVSTIGNEI Sergei, shut-up!
KARP Dora, anything you’d like to see?
DORA Can they be dancing mutton chops?
KARP Dora. A play. A good play. But nothing too sentimental. If there is one thing I hate is people on stage being more emotional than they are in real life.
EPHIM But can it have a romance?
KARP All right, Ephim, it can have a romance. But it should be real. About real life. Real people. Nothing exalted. Nothing exaggerated.
YEVSTIGNEI You ask for a lot.
KARP Do you want to eat or don’t you?
CHEKHOV You have something that meets all those requirements. One of mine.
YEVSTIGNEI And who are you?
DASHENKA Oh my God. It’s him. It’s really him. But how?
CHEKHOV What does it matter? A company of actors was in distress. I came.
»
The “Other Russians” is, I now see, a misnomer, as there is only one other, Dostoyevsky. Alec Harrington’s audacious eight-hour adaptation of The Brothers Karamazov is a singular theatrical achievement, bringing the depth and complexity of a modern literary classic quite wholeheartedly and stunningly to the stage for audiences to experience in all its honest enormity.
ALEXANDER HARRINGTON was born in New York on March 23, 1968, and grew up in Greenwich Village and Larchmont, NY. He has a B.A. in English from Columbia University, and an M.F.A in Theatre from Louisiana State University. Harrington’s theatre debut came at age nine, when he performed in Jean Anouilh’s Traveler Without Luggage at Soho Rep. Harrington splits his time between New York City and Central, South Carolina.
EXCERPT
(The stone. Snegiryov, Alyosha, and the boys enter. Snegiryov is holding flowers)
Snegiryov: This is the stone. We used to walk here in the evenings.
Smurov: Captain, sir, why did you throw breadcrumbs on his grave?
Snegiryov: He asked me to --so the birds would come, so he wouldn't be alone.
Smurov: I'll go to his grave everyday and put breadcrumbs on it.
Kolya: We all should -- you, too, Kartashov.
Kartashov: I will.
Kolya: Captain Snegiryov, sir, you're crushing the flowers.
Snegiryov: Flowers? ... Flowers for mama, flowers for mama, I hurt mama, flowers for mama. (He runs off)
Kolya: Should we go after him?
Alyosha: Not now. Let them cry in peace. We'll go back for the memorial dinner.
Kolya: Karamazov, isn't this memorial dinner business a little strange. All this grief and then we sit down for pancakes – it’s unnatural.
Kartashov: They're having salmon, too.
Kolya: Kartashov, if you dropped off the face of the earth, no one would notice.
Alyosha: The pancakes and the salmon are an ancient tradition. Even when we face death, God wants us to be joyful.
Kolya: Karamazov, did your brother do it, or was it the lackey?
Alyosha: The lackey killed him, my brother is innocent.
Smurov: I told you.
Alyosha: Boys, we’re going to be parting soon. My elder told me to go out into the world and I have to go. I'll stay til Dmitry is sent away and I'll stay to take care of Ivan: until he gets better or until he dies. But then I’ll have to go and we may not see each other for a very long time. Let’s make a pact, here at Ilyusha’s stone. That we will never forget Ilyusha and we will never forget each other. Even if we don’t see each other for twenty years, remember Ilyusha. How we threw stones at him and how we came to love him so much. Remember how kind he was and remember how brave he was. How he felt his father's humiliation so deeply that he rose up against his whole class. And even though we may be involved in the most important affairs, achieve distinction, or fall into some great misfortune, let us never forget how good we once felt here, all together, united by a good and kind feeling, which made us, perhaps, better than we actually are. Some of us may become wicked; we may not be able to resist evil; we may laugh at people's tears; we may laugh at the good. But if we remember this moment, if we remember how we felt when we stood together by this stone, not even the most cruel and jeering man among us will dare laugh at how kind and good he was at this moment.
Kolya: I'll never forget this day -- ever.
Alyosha: And never forget Ilyusha.
Kolya: Karamazov ... I loved him ..
Smurov: I miss him, Karamazov, I want him to come back ...
Kolya: Karamazov, is it really true we'll rise from the dead on Judgement Day and see each other again ... and Ilyusha?
Alyosha: Yes.
Kartashov: Karamazov ... I love you ...
Kolya: I love you, too, Karamazov.
Smurov: So do I ..
Alyosha: I love you. Now lets go in to the pancakes, gentleman. Hand in hand.
Kolya: Always.
Alyosha: Yes, Kolya, always.
Kolya: Hurrah for Karamazov!
Kolya, Smurov, Kartashov: Hurrah for Karamazov!
Hurrah for Karamazov!
Hurrah for Karamazov!
(Lights come up in the background to reveal the rest of the cast. Curtain call.)