Arts & Entertainment
Decadent drama
Blanchett and co. delight in Chekhov adaptation
‘Uncle Vanya’
Through Aug. 27
Sydney Theater Company
The Kennedy Center
$59-$135
202-467-4600
kennedy-center.org
Richard Roxburgh and Cate Blanchett in ‘Uncle Vanya.’ (Photo courtesy of Sydney Theater Company)
Only a few big movies stars shine onstage like they do on screen. Cate Blanchett is one of them. She proved this to local audiences two summers ago with her compelling portrayal of Blanche Dubois in Sydney Theatre Company’s “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Now she’s back at the Kennedy Center confirming her sizable gift as beautiful Yelena in the company’s take on Anton Chekhov’s classic tragicomedy, “Uncle Vanya.”
Staged by Hungarian director Tamás Ascher, it’s an original, bold production that bursts with antic energy, laughter, sadness and self-imposed misery. Blanchett and the rest of the excellent nine-person ensemble cast take chances plumbing the material for all its humor and pathos and the results are terrific.
From her first entrance, Blanchett’s Yelena makes it painfully obvious that country life is not for her. With her white cat-eye framed sunglasses and silk scarf, she is dressed more for paparazzi dodging than walking the grounds of a crumbling estate in the summer heat. Her much older husband, professor Serebryokav (John Bell), looks equally out of place in his citified trench coat and galoshes. Indeed, they’d both prefer to be in town, but straightened circumstances dictate otherwise.
The estate is run by plain and stalwart Sonya (Hayley McElhinney), the professor’s daughter with his late first wife, and her unhappy Uncle Vanya (a marvelously depressed Richard Roxburgh). Vanya was once the professor’s biggest fan working tirelessly on the estate so the professor could concentrate on loftier pursuits, but no more. Vanya has grown disillusioned with his ex-idol. At 47, he feels cheated by life. Making matters worse Vanya is in love with the professor’s beautiful wife.
Totally bored and indifferent to her husband, Yelena alternates from icily poised to warm and almost goofy, but mostly she is restless. And while Vanya’s romantic advances repulse her, she does feel something for the visiting doctor Astrov (played superbly by Hugo Weaving, best known for the film, “The Adventures Priscilla: Queen of the Desert”). Though coarsened by a decade of hard work and vodka, Astrov remains charming and sensitive. Forward thinking like the playwright (Chekhov was also a physician), the doctor is obsessed with preventing the deforestation of the countryside. In fact, he delivers a monologue with a strong environmental message that strongly resonates today more than a century later.
Regardless of Astrov’s recommendation that Russians spare trees and extract fuel from the earth, a workman can be seen frequently chopping wood in the background. And despite (or because of) the doctor’s aversion to felled trees, Zsolt Khell’s set is mostly timber. The interior of the formerly grand but now rundown house is backed by a huge wall of weathered planks and firewood is stacked here and there.
Working from a lively adaptation by Andrew Upton (Blanchett’s husband with whom she runs Australia’s Sydney Theatre Company), Ascher rather brilliantly moves the action from turn-of-the-century Tsarist Russia to mid-1950s Soviet Union. There is no romantic descent into genteel poverty or hope for the future. The atmosphere is more stultifying than ever: as pesky flies drone, radio static hums, the household grows increasingly on edge, ultimately erupting in bursts of violence. And when they’re not fighting, the extended family goes in for demonstrations of remorse, friendship and passion. Also included throughout are some very funny uncomfortable silences, pratfalls and drunken interludes, but nothing feels the least forced when executed by this top-notch group of Aussie actors.
Tall and slim with chicly styled white-blonde hair, Blanchett stands out like a bright light and Györgyi Szakács’ gorgeous costumes only up the wattage. While the others sport baggy earth tones, her Yelena draws attention in a tight red dress and is equally fetching in the crisp gray traveling suit she wears to give the doctor a bracing farewell kiss before beating a hasty exit back to the city.
The Petal Release Party and Drag Show was held at Spark Social on Friday, July 31. Performers included Tiara-Missou, Labianna and Darcy de la Cuadra.
(Washington Blade photos by Landon Shackelford)
Celebrity News
Madonna headlines World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam
Kylie Minogue made surprise appearance alongside gay icon
AMSTERDAM — Madonna on Sunday headlined the final night of the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam.
The gay icon took the stage shortly before 2:30 a.m. local time (8:30 p.m. ET on Saturday) during Club Confessions, a set that MISTR, a telehealth platform that offers free access to PrEP, Doxy PEP, STI testing, and long-term HIV care, organized.
“Mother is here and this is gay heaven,” said Madonna when she took the stage inside Amsterdam’s AFAS Live concert hall that can hold up to 6,000 people.
Stuart Price, who produced Madonna’s 2005 “Confessions on a Dance Floor” album and “Confessions II,” which debuted on July 2, DJed the set.
Kylie Minogue made a surprise appearance. She and Madonna performed a new remix of “Love Sensation” from “Confessions II.”
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
“Throughout my career, I’ve always supported efforts to fight HIV and AIDS, and that fight begins with education and access,” said Madonna in a MISTR press release. “With MISTR, (CEO) Tristan (Schukraft) is expanding access to HIV prevention and sexual healthcare for everyone. Through this work, he’s helping preserve and strengthen LGBTQ+ spaces while investing in the communities and culture that have long sustained us.”
Minogue in an Instagram post thanked Madonna, Price, Schukraft, and MISTR.
Madonna appeared at The Abbey in West Hollywood, Calif., in April. Madonna in June celebrated Pride month with a pop-up performance in New York’s Times Square.
Jake Resnicow and Insomniac produced the World Pride Music Festival that also featured Bebe Rexha and Paris Hilton, among others.
“Pride has always been about bringing our community together,” said Resnicow. “At a moment when too many people are being told to hide or make themselves smaller, gathering openly, joyfully, and without apology matters more than ever. I couldn’t be prouder of what this festival brought to life in Amsterdam — one dance floor, completely free.”
Theater
Reggie White relishing first season as artistic director of Woolly Mammoth
First five shows a reminder that ‘pressure is a privilege’
Madly talented and preternaturally energetic, Reggie D. White, 38, is about to launch his first season as artistic director of D.C.’s boundary-pushing Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.
White brings a lot to the job. As actor, playwright, and director, his varied resume includes a 2019 Broadway acting debut in Matthew López’s Tony Award–winning play “The Inheritance,” his semi-autobiographic play “Fremont Ave.” that opened to acclaim last season at Arena Stage, and a number of exciting regional directing credits.
A longtime admirer of Woolly, the out theater-maker was selected from a pool of candidates before receiving the offer last November and starting work in January. His season of five world premieres kicks off with gay playwright Steve Yockey’s “Venus” (Sept. 9-Oct. 4), a darkly funny study of modern relationships told through two lesbians looking back on their first encounter.
White was introduced to Woolly Mammoth as a pre-law student at Cal State Hayward in the San Francisco Bay Area, long before he foresaw a life in the arts. “As part of a random theater history course, I was assigned to write a paper on a counterculture company called Woolly Mammoth,” he recalls “Strange name. I was like what the hell is that?”
Nineteen-year-old White was intrigued. Research acquainted him with Howard Shalwitz who co-founded Woolly in 1980, and the company’s commitment to living playwrights and new work. He also learned how theater could be used as a tool for difficult conversations and shape the way people thought about social issues by employing imagination and rigor.
“Never in a million years did young me envision that one day I’d be Woolly’s third artistic director in its 46-year history,” says White. “It’s kind of serendipitously insane.”
WASHINGTON BLADE: Was there a moment when the enormity of the job hit you?
REGGIE D. WHITE: After I’d signed my contract and finished all the paperwork, I got my keys and sat in the theater by myself in the dark and thought about what an incredible honor it is to be trusted with what happens in this beautiful space [in D.C.’s Penn Quarter]. I might have cried. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remember it’s real.
BLADE: Are you curating the upcoming 2026–2027 season?
WHITE: Yes, I am. It’s very rare that an incoming artistic director gets to program their first season, but I was lucky in terms of time. After being hired late last year, I asked Woolly’s managing director Kimberly E. Douglas, if she thought it would be crazy if I programmed the season. She warned me it would be hard.
I invoked tennis legend Billie Jean King’s maxim “pressure is a privilege” and got to work.
These plays [dubbed White’s “first five”] represent both the kind of theater that Woolly can do really well and speak directly to my voice as curator and how I want to contribute to the larger theatrical conversation in the DMV.
Getting here has meant a lot of late nights. But I knew the juice would be worth the squeeze.
BLADE: As a queer artistic director, what makes you unique?
WHITE: When I was playing in “Inheritance” on Broadway, after a performance, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayer came backstage to meet the cast. She spoke about how her lens on the world as a Puerto Rican woman shapes her decisions. Similarly, because I’m a queer Black man I see through a lens that shapes my work.
I know I’m not the only queer artistic director in town. For me, it influences how I make editorial decisions. Out of this season’s five plays there are explicitly queer characters in four [“Venus,” “Chanukkah Spectacular,” “Ten Grand,” and “Love I Awethu Further”] and I’m directing two [“Venus,” “Ten Grand”].
BLADE: Will we see familiar faces?
WHITE: Every show this season will feature a Woolly Mammoth company member in its cast. Our company also includes designers and directors who we’ll include. I’m invested in continuing to provide a showcase for their work.
BLADE: How do you think queer audiences will receive the season?
WHITE: Very well, I think. For queer people who’ve had to navigate the world subversively and solve problems in unique ways, I think it will be especially interesting. I find theater a potent place for questions.
Like all artistic directors. I’ll show up for the job in my own way. I’m just excited that I’ve been invited to bring the fullness of myself to the role.
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