Aporia Artist's Collective to Present BUT NOT UNCLE VANYA

But Not Uncle Vanya will be presented at The Fidget Space in Philadelphia on March 11th-13th, 18th-20th at 7:30pm. There will also be a digital run for two weeks after closing, for anyone unable to make an in-person performance. Tickets will be pay-what-you-can, and can be reserved here.

But Not Uncle Vanya had a successful Zoom workshop in the 2021 Philadelphia Theatre Week. The creative team took feedback from the audience, polished the piece for a year, and is ready to put it up on stage for the first time. But Not Uncle Vanya is also Aporia Artists Collective's inaugural staged production.

Play Synopsis: Uncle Vanya, without... Uncle Vanya. You know, the interesting parts of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, it's just, those parts just happen to not have the character Uncle Vanya in them. The stuff we care about. (The stuff without Vanya.) Astrov is doing his best helming a rewrite of his classic story, and Sonia and Yelena are along for the ride. You can only get so far, however, before a gun has to go off. As Astrov tries to get them to an ending without getting shot and Sonia tries to keep her world together, Yelena starts to wonder if she could also make some changes. Maybe even remove herself entirely.

Aporia Artists Collective was founded in 2020 out of a need for community among passionate theatre makers from across the country. We strive to engage audiences and members with both classical and new works. We maintain a sense of wonder and innovation in all our programs, from weekly reading series to full productions. Most of all, we believe that new and diverse stories propel theatre forward, and we work to create an equitable space where all are welcome and free to explore our shared humanity through theatre.

Playwright Statement: "Yelena quietly talking about being young, passionate, and hopeful but just being trapped without anyone else like you really cut me to the core while rereading Uncle Vanya during quarantine. I feel like that's how most theatre artists have been feeling for the last year: stuck and adrift at the same time. Astrov, Yelena, and Sonia are the heartbeat within Uncle Vanya, and it has been so much fun figuring out the many ways their relationship echoes across multiple generations, artists, and interpretations. As a playwright, reading a play specifically for Anton Chekhov's muse Olga Knipper really made me think about (and appreciate!) the people who affect my art. The relationship of artist and inspiration has existed as long as the arts have; Chekhov created one of his best works because of it, and with But Not Uncle Vanya we hope to explore not only the depths of his relationship, but how that dynamic can push us to brand new places."

Director Statement: "There's something truly striking about reading Chekhov these days. Of course, he has been one of my favorite playwrights for quite some time, but rereading his complete works in March of 2020 has left me with something different. Here we see characters coping with universal struggles: unrequited love, declines in mental health, a longing for escapism, but with the backdrop of a country that was undergoing deep political change. As we deal with our own petty troubles during this time, the plights of Sonia, Yelena, and Astrov feel particularly familiar to us as we remember to give equal care to both the big picture and the smaller scope of our own problems. Perhaps the most striking, however, is how deeply personal these characters seem to Chekhov; in Uncle Vanya even more so than his other plays. The character of Astrov is in a lot of ways a stand-in for the writer's own self: a passionate young doctor, obsessed with changing the world, but frustratingly powerless. This ended up leading Alice and I down a rabbit hole of understanding the woman this role was written for: Olga Knipper, Chekhov's wife, "The Leading Lady of the Moscow Art Theatre." As a woman in Russia at the turn of the century, few freedoms were afforded to her and yet here she was - a contemporary of Chekhov, Stanislavski, Gorky, Tolstoy. Somewhat forgotten by time and still, Knipper's 60 year career leaves an imprint on all the plays she has touched. We took this as the go-ahead to explore all the roles that were written for her and explore her own voice in the context of hundreds of letters publicly available between her and Chekhov during the peak of both of their careers."

"Our mission with But Not Uncle Vanya was simply to breathe life into an already near-perfect play, centering this story in the female voice and pulling on the strings of realism that hold this world together. This show is an almost hallucinogenic way of experiencing a play we already know: A way to discuss the text and engage in a more contemporary discourse while still actively performing the original play. What is Uncle Vanya without its titular role? Without the clutter of other characters onstage? Who gets a say in the way we preserve stories? Maybe it is time to open all of these classics and simply inject the things we have learned to do without."

Aporia Artist's Collective Presents:

But Not Uncle Vanya

Written and Adapted by Alice Hakvaag (she/her)

Directed by Hannah Postlewait (she/her)

Produced by Julianne Schaub (she/her)

Cast

Maggie Brennan (she/her) as Sonia

Kevin McCann (he/him) as Astrov

Megnot Toggia (he/him) as Yelena

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