Vanya on 42nd Street

In the late 1980s, noted theatrical director Andre Gregory assembled a group of friends and actors and began rehearsing a new translation of Anton Chekhov's +Uncle Vanya by David Mamet, not with any specific performance in mind but as a way of exploring the beauty and precise construction of ...more

A clever and powerful interpretation of the Anton Chekhov play +Uncle Vanya, Vanya on 42nd Street reunites director Louis Malle with Wallace Shawn and André Gregory, his collaborators from 1981's My Dinner With André. Like that film, Vanya is a self-reflexive examination of the thin line between an actor's performances and his or her own life; the success of both films relies on Malle's ability to convincingly blur that distinction. Essentially a filmed rehearsal, Vanya's spare production design ...more