There is something very magical about seeing a work in progress, especially when it is an interpretation of a play by one of the most celebrated writers of any generation. If we’re not able to witness it firsthand, whatever material remains is often good enough in giving us insights into what made this such a special work. We may not have been able to see Anton Chekhov’s works that were produced during his lifetime, but the celebrated Russian playwright has left behind one of the greatest legacies of any writer across the global culture, which has led to many of his plays becoming incredibly influential. Uncle Vanya is one of his most acclaimed, and is often seen as a rite of passage for those working in the theatre, since the writer’s complex prose, which often told stories that resonated far beyond their early 20th-century Russian roots, has been perceived as some of the most impactful in all of literature. This is essentially the impetus behind David Mamet’s decision to work with Andre Gregory, one of the most acclaimed dramatists and actors of the modern era, in adapting Uncle Vanya into an experimental new production, conducting a series of workshops with a group of notable actors working on the New York stage. These workshops were captured by Louis Malle (who had previously worked with Gregory, most notably on My Dinner with Andre, where the actor was one half of the namesake duo), who turned them into Vanya on 42nd Street, which is amongst the most powerful pieces of theatrical cinema ever produced, both for the value it has as a modernizing of Chekhov’s original text, and for its commentary on the art of theatre, which the artists at the heart of this film work laboriously to explore, carefully guiding us through the art of literature with precision and earnest conviction in not only celebrated Chekhov, but giving us a glimpse into the theatrical process as a whole.

Theatre is more than just actors appearing on stage, which would appear to be an obvious sentiment, but is still something that audiences struggle to understand. When we are seated in front of any stage of varying quality, watching these actors strut and fret their hour upon that platform, we are often not aware of all the work that went into its creation. Vanya on 42nd Street is an attempt to challenge these preconceived notions. Instead of being a direct adaptation of the titular play (which we have noted was already in existence, with Mamet and Gregory working hard to realize a new version of the story), the film is a more experimental work, a dizzying blend of cinema and theatre, blurring the lines between two art forms that don’t often meet as serendipitously as they do under Malle’s careful direction. The boundary between fiction and reality starts to become far more ambigious, especially since the film starts with the actors quite literally walking into the theatre, playing themselves before immediately transforming into their respective characters the moment they set foot on that stage, remaining in the street clothes and changing very little about their appearance or cadence. This is not an easy film to fully comprehend at first – there isn’t a distinct delineation between what is being spoken by the actors, and what is the work of Chekhov (especially since Mamet beautifully translates the original text, not only into English, but also filtering it through a more contemporary register that makes it modern and dynamic, far from the stilted, humourless result of less-effective adaptations that seem to believe translation entails a one-to-one transposing of words between languages), but once we are able to grasp onto the wavelength of the film and begin to appreciate its unique approach to the material, the sooner we can fully surrender to the unique experience of seeing these actors engage in something between a rehearsal and workshop performance of a fascinating interpretation of a play that is already complex and layered as it stands, their work only making Chekhov’s narrative richer and more compelling.

Vanya on 42nd Street is a film primarily driven by the performances – one of the fundamental differences between film and theatre is that, in the case of the former, it is often the director or writer that is the ultimate authorial voice, and the person that has the final say in what makes it to the screen. On stage, while the role of both the writer and director is of paramount importance, much of the interpretation is put on the actors, who are tasked with bringing these characters to life, each performance being slightly different in some way. By nature of the way it was made, Vanya on 42nd Street does fit in more with the former, since it is only presenting us with one version of each actor’s interpretation – but it is far from limited in this regard, since each of the actors brings their own unique perspective to the roles, and thus ultimately end up shaping the film. The two directors (Gregory, as the director of the production, and Malle, as the person facilitating this recording of these workshop sessions) are placed mostly in the background, with the most significant work being the result of each actor using the opportunity to work through their own ideas, many of them occurring in real-time as the film progresses. After a while, the text begins to envelop the actors, transforming them from people playing these parts into the characters themselves – and none of that is accomplished with anything other than the power of their performances, with the bare-boned structure of the production (which didn’t even contain costume changes, and featured a very sparse set) lending itself primarily to the actors, who are given this space to develop the characters on their own terms, ultimately putting together distinct versions of Chekhov’s iconic creations, their ability to disappear into these characters with nothing but the words written for them, and their bodies and voices (which have always been an actor’s most primary tool of creation) proving the power of performance.

Any good adaptation is the result of collaboration, and Vanya on 42nd Street is certainly a film built mainly on this very principle. We can view this film as the result of an artistic triangulation between Chekhov, as the writer of the original text, Gregory, Mamet and the cast, as the people involved in this particular experimental adaptation of the play, and Malle, who serves the role as the person tasked with capturing the production. Any work of literary adaptation that refuses to acknowledge how it is inherently going to be the product of collaboration between the original text and whatever new version is being produced has immediately set itself up for failure. Uncle Vanya is a text perfectly preserved in the literary consciousness, and while we may not be able to have access to the version staged and performed by Chekhov and his collaborators over a century ago, we can easily look at the original work and understand its impact. However, what has given the play importance is how it has traversed time and space to become a text embraced by audiences far beyond the playwright’s intended social milieu – and an English-language version set in a dilapidated New York City theatre (which becomes a character on its own) is just as interesting as the original production, not in terms of the specific details, but how it addresses themes far beyond those of the socio-cultural context in which they were written. This is probably the most distinct sign of a great adaptation, where those given the opportunity to reinterpret an existing text understand that, regardless of how good their production may be, it is nothing but a further entry into the source material’s long lineage of adaptations, and that no one will ever be able to create the definitive version. Instead, they can filter it through their own particular social and cultural context, and add specific nuances (which is encouraged throughout this production, each actor characterising their individual role with their own set of quirks and idiosyncracies), which will ultimately equate to an exciting new vision of an archaic text that still remains so poignant.

Vanya on 42nd Street is a worthwhile endeavour, despite being quite rough around the edges. Some may even argue that, by virtue of approaching the material in such a way, Malle expands on many of its primary ideas. Interestingly, the actual content of the play and its countless themes are only secondary to the more specific intentions the director had when choosing to capture the fascinating version of the text by Gregory and Mamet, with Malle choosing to focus his attention on the idea of theatre as a tool of reinvention. Vanya on 42nd Street is as much about Uncle Vanya as it is about the people who play these roles, the theatre in which their performance is housed, and the specific context in which this adaptation takes place. That is precisely where the film is at its most fascinating, since it doesn’t need to constantly be referring back to the themes as Chekhov envisioned them, but instead using them as a foundation for some of the more interesting elements brought to the production by the modern writers. This is not a case of simply recording a theatrical production for posterity, but rather forming it into a vivid, stunningly complex film that questions the nature of the boundary between film and theatre like very few others have been able to do, and frequently comments on issues much deeper than those that appear on the surface. Beautifully poignant, complex and wonderfully constructed, Vanya on 42nd Street is a major work of theatrical cinema (or is it cinematic theatre?) that provokes some deep conversations on the nature of engaging with older texts in a way that is profoundly modern, leading to many insightful observations that make this such an exhilarating piece of metafictional filmmaking.