Neil LaBute gives Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya a more contemporary-sounding tweak in the Tony nominated playwright’s third visit to Santa Monica’s City Garage Theatre, and the result is a Vanya that even Chekhov “non-fans” like this reviewer can enjoy.

As with The Seagull, The Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard, there’s little or no “action” in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya.

Indeed, if Hollywood wanted to sum up what little there is of a “plot” in a short, catchy tagline, it would probably be, “They came. They stirred things up. They left.”

The “they” in question are retired Professor Serebryakov (Andy Kallok) and his beautiful, much younger wife Yelena (Angela Beyer), whose arrival at the professor’s family estate has the bearded gent’s deceased first wife’s 47-year-old brother Ivan (Vanya) Voynitsky, his daughter (from his first marriage) Sonia (Anabela Nguyen), and local doctor Astrov (Taylor Lee Marr) all hot and bothered as both Vanya and Astrov go gaga for Yelena while Sonia pines for the ponytailed doc who hardly knows she’s alive.

As to why Serebryakov’s is paying the family this unwelcome visit, well it turns out he’s got plans to sell the estate, invest the profits, and buy a villa in Finland for himself and his nubile bride.

 Meanwhile elsewhere on the property, Sonia’s nerdy godfather Telegrin (Ralph Radebaugh) strums the guitar, Vanya’s mother Maria (Strawn Bovee) makes it clear she’d pick her son’s nemesis the professor over Vanya any day, and elderly housekeeper Marina (Geraldine Fuentes) contents herself with serving tea while tsk-tsking the foolish mortals around her.

 Other than unfulfilled desires galore, a passionate make-out session that may or may not be one-sided, and gunshots fired (offstage of course, and no one gets hurt), that’s about there is where plot (or lack of it) is concerned.

But Chekhov plays aren’t about dramatic events. They’re about the characters he’s created, their relationships with each other, and the almost always unrequited love that has our hearts aching for them even as their helpless, hopeless antics provoke more than a few chuckles along the way.

Director Frédérique Michel and her cast know that to perform Chekhov without humor is to disregard the playwright’s intentions. (Chekhov himself bemoaned the way the Moscow Art Theatre treated them as heavy, tragic dramas.)

When done right, one can’t help but be tickled by how sadly misguided their romantic feelings can be, or how poor Sonia keeps getting reminded that she’s not “a pretty girl, Mama,” or just how much of a dweeb poor Telegrin can be (though he does score points at City Garage for managing to play tunes on the guitar while scarcely moving the fingers of either hand).

 Yes, Chekhov can be talky, but a number of particularly sparkling performances offset the potential for ennui at City Garage, in particular Dunn’s quicksilver star turn in the title role. (Like Jack Nicholson on the big screen, the City Garage staple manages to make each role spontaneously and distinctively his own, and Vanya is no exception.)

Nguyen follows her fierce and fabulous City Garage debut as Antigone with a Sonya so heartbreakingly real, you just want to give the poor girl a much-needed hug while Beyer once again proves herself City Garage’s premier leading lady as the enticing, enigmatic Yelena.

 Marr does terrific work as the despairing environmentalist drunk that is Dr. Astrov, assistant director Rodebaugh’s droll turn as Telegrin provides occasional comic relief, Kallok rages against the ravages of time as Serebryakov, and Bovee and Fuentes prove that old age doesn’t mean a loss of smarts, no matter that each relies on a walking stick to get around.

Charles A. Duncombe is once again a jack of all trades as set, lighting, and audio designer (and uncredited stage manager), Josephine Poinsot’s costumes are elegantly situated somewhere between then and now, and Anthony Sannazzaro has contributed some lovely video/projection designs.

Chekhov may remain for me an acquired taste that I’m still acquiring, but thanks to Neil LaBute and City Garage, I’m inching closer to being a bona fide fan.

City Garage, 2525 Michigan Ave. Building T1, Santa Monica. Through March 29. Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00. Sundays at 4:00.
www.citygarage.org

–Steven Stanley
February 21, 2026
Photos: Paul Rubenstein

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Tags: Anton Chekhov, City Garage, Los Angeles Theater Review, Neil LaBute