Critic’s Notebook: Anton Chekhov for the modern world

NEW YORK — Anton Chekhov is always with us in the theater. Having recently returned from a stifling hot busman’s holiday in New York where I saw two productions of “Uncle Vanya,” the Baker adaptation at Soho Rep and the Upton adaptation courtesy of the Sydney Theatre Company at the Lincoln Center Festival starring Cate Blanchett, I can’t help pondering the meaning of this Chekhovian preponderance. But there’s an improvisational freshness to the performances, three of which connect Chekhov’s century to our own, much as Bart DeLorenzo managed in his scintillating “Ivanov” at the Odyssey Theatre earlier this season. But I’m reminded of something that Blanchett told me when I interviewed her in June about “Vanya” and her ongoing work at Sydney Theatre Company that perhaps better explains this recent high-profile fascination with Chekhov. They No one seeing “Uncle Vanya” today can precisely pinpoint the source of our own historical apprehension, but given the barrage of economic crises, the political upheavals that include the still-unfolding consequences of the “Arab Spring” and the havoc being wrought by climate change, it’s easy to understand the urgency with which Chekhov’s plays continue to speak to us Of course the characters in “Uncle Vanya,” bewildered by ageless existential questions, have their hands full just trying to endure their disappointments.