Deborah Martin

24/02/25 on the 39th anniversary of my father’s death I watched Andrew Scott’s solo performance in Anton Chekhov’s ‘Vanya’ (first published in the 1890s) streamed into Vue Cinema in Gateshead. The play explores Ivan Vanya’s hopes, dreams and regrets of a wasted life but with the twist of Scott playing every character in it. I hadn’t read any background to the play other than hearing Scott excelled in his performance and got outstanding reviews. I couldn’t believe how quickly the two hours passed and how mesmerised I’d be by him effortlessly switching between every character and how beautifully he performed raw and very real emotions ….I did however bark up the wrong tree in thinking Ivan Vanya was a sectioned patient in a secure unit who’d stolen and taken morphine from the ward, became delusional and psychotic in reliving his life, regrets and resentments over and over by playing out all the characters in his life past and present! I really liked my interpretation but was shocked none of the reviews saw what I saw…that love, loss and trauma, if left untreated or unresolved, can trigger significant mental illness.