Uncle Vanya and the 12 bouquets, 2008
Radio Slovenia, Echoes, Culture Diary, 22 September 2008, Miha Zor
Among the main four characters, threads of love are being knit and interwoven, running from uncle Vanya to the young wife of his brother-in-law Srebrjakov and from Vanya's niece to the doctor. However, they are tied into an entangled knot when passion is ignited between Srebrjak's wife and the doctor, therefore between two people whom the emotions of Vanya and his niece are directed at, which can lead to nothing but sadness and disappointment in the lives of refused lovers. This in turn also connects to a different kind of life disappointment, namely the decision made by professor Srebrjakov to sell the estate and move into a small villa in Finland, which has a ruthlessly devastating and devaluating effect on the economic efforts of Vanya's entire life, thus robbing him of the only thing he has come to know as his life. The paths leading from the situation that is slightly humorous at first, to Vanya and his niece, who are persuasively dissolved in tears at first and later on resigned to their fate, are thickened and cleared from the beginning towards the end of the play: the staging thus obtains the necessary cohesiveness leading to the final strong effect on the viewer. Finally, let us also mention a few excellent solutions connected to the dramaturgy and movement (the stage manager of the staging was Petra Tanko): the difficulty with which the professor's wife lifts her mantle or with which his daughter pulls a ball of wool behind her, is accentuated by the recorded sound resembling the slithering of an extremely heavy burden across the surface which causes heavy friction - and yet, the act presents a routine, an everyday deed that the characters of this play obviously have such difficulty accomplishing; the conflicting forces inside an individual are excellently illustrated by the professor's wife falling to the ground and then immediately rising again, the force being to strong not to make her fall down again on her knees; the professor is merely a voice coming from somewhere, which accentuates his resemblance to a kind of god, given that the fate of every person who is also physically present on the stage is connected to his existence and lack thereof. We have not mentioned everything, only the main, most evident and efficient elements; let us conclude with the fact that even the guitar player's and the drummer's presence on stage do not disturb the play in the least, while the sounds they create organically fall into the process of development of contents and form in Uncle Vanya and the 12 bouquets.
Dnevnik, Pop/Kultura - 25 September 2008, Ignacija J. Fridl
The horizon enclosed by the barred windows, which is transformed with the help of video-background provided by Boštjan Božič from the optimistically green silhouettes of nature into the fantastical imaginary of the sky to the colorless, transparent grey expressing life in the form of a dungeon, is the best actor in the performance. Otherwise, Lea Menard as the female embodiment of Uncle Vanya acts out the story of the twelve stops of his disappointment with all intensity, most impressively with her hollowed look and the intense pulsating movement of her contracted arms depicting the clipped wings of a wild duck.
MMC RTV SLO, Uncle Vanya with a Question about God , 21 September 2008, Ljubljana, Lejla Švabić
Barbara Novakovič, the author of the staging featuring actors Manca Krnel, Alena Medich, Lea Menard and Rafael Vončina, with musical scores contributed by Luka Prinčič, Dominik Bagola and Manuel Kuran, explains that Uncle Vanya tries to survive by committing suicide, in which he fails, which is why he tries to kill a man and fails at it as well. According to Novakovič, this indicates that his success actually lies in his eternal failure.
Uncle Vanya, this time represented in the female form of Lea Menard, is therefore condemned to eternal failure. This is otherwise substantiated in the concluding words of Sonja (Alena Medich), expressing the general conviction and faith that the Russian drama artist places in work as the only solution for Russia and thereby also for the individual. However, the work and suffering never cease, which means that better life only exists in another, ideal world. The only possibility of redemption for Uncle Vanya is therefore an ideal world or perhaps total resignation indicated by the apathetic look in the eyes of Lea Menard in the final scene.
The Emptiness of a Rural Nothing
The certainly utterly purified scenery with the periodical videotapes by Boštjan Božič clearly bears witness to the mournful state of the Russian countryside, to where professor Srebrjakov and his new young spouse return after eleven years of absence. The present staging of Uncle Vanya, which remains quite faithful to the original text in spite of the fact that it is supposed to represent a mere selection of themes from the play, found its starting point in the sentence: "In your home, time goes by in a different way." The emptiness expanding from this sentence slowly paralyses and drains the individuals of energy. They are set against the establishing world of capitalism which Chekhov often sets as the culprit for the decay of the Russian countryside (Three Sisters). And in this atmosphere, the play was meant to incorporate into this year's religious theme of the Ex Ponto festival; as written in the accompanying text, the emptiness radiated by Uncle Vanya diverts attention from the ever-present sickness of the contemporary man, a capitalist, who lays emphasis exclusively on his own interests. And this is where the question wrests from: Where is God?
