Andrew Scott... that's all

thoughts on the National Theatre Live recording of Vanya

I already knew that Andrew Scott was an incredibly talented performer from his roles in All of Us Strangers, and, most famously, his turn as Hot Priest in Fleabag. I didn’t understand the true extent of his talent, though, until last night when I was lucky enough to watch the National Theatre Live recording of his 2023 performance of Vanya, a one man show by playwright Simon Stephens, adapted from Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya.

We got to enjoy the play in the Center’s theater on a big movie screen. National Theatre Live professionally filmed a night of Vanya’s run at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London during the original 2023 run of the production ahead of the one man show jumping over to New York for an off-Broadway run in the spring.

Going into the evening, I was a bit apprehensive as to whether I’d be able to keep track of a one man show populated by a full cast of characters. Unlike other singular actor shows I was familiar with, like Fleabag’s original existence on the stage, Vanya isn’t monologue-like, performed from a stool on a blank stage. There is a full set with a small kitchen featuring running taps, a door, a piano, a swing, and many chairs, tables, and props. There’s even a large curtain in the back transforming the set from upstairs to basement. Scott performs in a single costume wearing nondescript somewhat baggy trousers, a sea foam shirt partially buttoned, and a gold chain he tends to fidget with when performing the character of Helena.

The play opens with a conversation between Maureen, who frets about Alexander’s strange requests for fresh soup at odd hours and being made to serve lunch late into the evening while smoking a cigarette, and Michael, a doctor who has come ostensibly to tend to Alexander, who no longer thinks he requires a doctor. This first exchange put my mind at ease seeing how clearly Scott managed to differentiate these two characters, modulating his voice through different pitches and accents to make them distinct in back and forth conversation.

The inhabiting of the characters is sometimes just a vocal alteration in quick exchanges of dialogue but is also, at times, marked by different physical mannerisms and the use of key props when characters are given monologues or more space in their exchanges. Michael bounces a tennis ball as a tick. Maureen smokes a cigarette. Sonia, Uncle Vanya’s niece, is always carrying a dish towel, and Vanya wears a pair of nondescript black sunglasses. Sometimes, the physical cues, though, are simply the way that Scott’s mannerisms and face transform as he jumps between different characters, showing a range and understanding of nuance that is truly captivating and nearly unbelievable. I sincerely believed that he was all eight of these characters, able to suspend disbelief effortlessly.

Vanya as a story is like many of the novels that I read. It’s about people being people in confined space and time. The play is set over a very long night on a country estate in an overfilled house. There’s Maureen and Liam, an old man who Sonia helps provide for out of the goodness of her heart, Sonia whose mother died and now lives with her Uncle Vanya on the estate, Ivan, who is also referred to as Vanya, his mother Elizabeth, Alexander, a famous filmmaker who resents not being able to afford living in the city, his much younger wife, Helena, and Michael the doctor. Within this large group, there is an intense tangle of frustrations and fascinations.

Both Michael and Vanya are infatuated with Helena and resent Alexander for being an old man still able to attract her as a wife when neither of the younger men have been lucky in love. Helena has her own mixed feelings about her life choices. Sonia has a burning crush. And Vanya blames his adoration of Alexander on his life going absolutely nowhere. He’s come to view Alexander not as a genius but as a fraud. There is no great overarching plot to the play. It is just these small personal disasters unspooling over a night where these simmering situations come to a head.

One thing that I didn’t expect going into the play was how absolutely hilarious it was. Each line, somehow, leaves the characters saying the next most absurd thing you could imagine, building a comedy out of mundane life events. The audience, both recorded in London and around me in the physical theater, went to stitches on multiple occasions as the play both pokes fun at the characters but also itself and the quirks of being a fully produced one man show. Many of the big plot reveals and funniest asides come from Scott having to belatedly narrate the results of an action—sometimes counter to the audience’s expectation—because we cannot witness simultaneous cause and effect from one man. Other moments, he make offhanded comments, like acknowledging a character’s presence that both the audience and the family seem to have forgotten about. He manages to conduct a whole family meeting, sitting at the center of a huddle of chairs and playing it in such a way that the chairs seem to come alive with the animation of the entire cast. There’s almost a ghostly feel to the scene. Most difficult, though, is Scott taking on an affair as he must enact a sex scene between two characters alone. This is executed shockingly well, with a tenderness that somehow managed to avoid the corny absurdity of the actual situation.

What perhaps struck me most about the show was the complete and utter intentionality behind every choice from the writing to the performance to the blocking and movements to the set design. Nothing felt accidental. And, to manage to get through two hours of material by yourself, no one to prompt a slipped memory and no shortage of words to recite, I would imagine that nothing could be.

Scott manages to inhabit these vastly different people, encouraged by motives and aims that are in direct contradiction to one another, with ease. Each character has more depth than I would’ve expected from a play where each actor was only tasked with delving into a singular role. While following the story does require your complete attention to continue tracking the progression—a quick glance at the stage won’t easily reveal what’s unfolding if you’ve lost the thread—I think that’s an experience many people are yearning for in an age where Netflix is retooling movie scripts to ensure that you can follow them without paying attention to the screen. Vanya demands your entire self, both attention and the depth of your emotional well, but it offers much more in return.

This is a true marvel of theatre, one that impresses from an artistic perspective but also delivers an important final impression from the resolution of the family drama. Now is the time. Whatever it is, do the thing you feel you most urgently have to do, and do it now. We don’t know how much time we have, and even, if like Vanya, you feel you’ve wasted your one wild and precious life, it’s only too late to start again if you never try.

If you can, I highly encourage you to see Vanya. The National Theatre Live’s capturing of the play is incredible, and I applaud the accessibility of broadcasting these plays to theaters in far flung places for a truly affordable price. It enables you to have the best seat in the house and the benefit of a movie-like lens to truly be able to take in the range of facial expressions. If you’re able, I would imagine that the New York run will be absolutely incredible as well.