Vanya on 42nd Street

Vanya on 42nd Street
Vanya on 42nd Street
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Louis Malle
Written by	Andre Gregory
Based on	Uncle Vanya; by Anton Chekhov, adapted by David Mamet
Produced by	Fred Berner
Starring	Phoebe Brand; Lynn Cohen; George Gaynes; Jerry Mayer; Julianne Moore; Larry Pine; Brooke Smith; Wallace Shawn; Andre Gregory;
Cinematography	Declan Quinn
Edited by	Nancy Baker
Music by	Joshua Redman
Distributed by	Sony Pictures Classics
Release date	September 13, 1994;
Running time	119 minutes
Language	English
Box office	$1,746,050

Vanya on 42nd Street is a 1994 American comedy-drama film directed by Louis Malle, written by Andre Gregory, and starring Wallace Shawn and Julianne Moore. The film is an intimate, interpretive performance of the 1899 play Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov as adapted by David Mamet.^[1]

Premise

Actors in New York City rehearse Uncle Vanya in a dilapidated theatre.

Cast

Wallace Shawn as Vanya
Julianne Moore as Yelena
Larry Pine as Dr. Astrov
Brooke Smith as Sonya
George Gaynes as Prof. Serebryakov
Phoebe Brand as Marina/Nanny
Jerry Mayer as Telegin/Waffles
Lynn Cohen as Vonenskaya/Maman

The film also features Madhur Jaffrey and Andre Gregory as himself. Shawn, Gregory, and Malle had previously collaborated on the 1981 film My Dinner with Andre. Several actors known to the New York stage are featured, including George Gaynes, Larry Pine, Phoebe Brand, Brooke Smith, and Lynn Cohen.

Moore, whose film career was gaining critical attention because of her performance in Short Cuts, was prominently featured in the advertising campaign for the film.

The soundtrack features music by the Joshua Redman Quartet, with Redman on tenor saxophone, Brad Mehldau on piano, Christian McBride on bass, and Brian Blade on drums.

Production

Over the course of three years, director Andre Gregory and a group of actors came together on a voluntary basis in order to better understand Chekhov's work through performance workshops. Staged entirely within the vacant shell of the then-abandoned New Amsterdam Theater on 42nd Street in New York City, they enacted the play rehearsal-style on a bare stage with the actors in street clothes. Free from any commercial demands, their performances were for an invited audience only. Gregory and director Louis Malle decided to document the play as they had developed it. The film was the result of the collaborative process. It was the last film of Malle's career.

Filming

Workshop rehearsals with Gregory and the cast originally took place at the abandoned Victory Theater on 42nd Street in New York City. The filmed version was shot entirely within the New Amsterdam Theatre, also on 42nd Street. Built in 1903, the theatre was the original home of the Ziegfeld Follies, a historical tidbit mentioned in the film during some pre-show banter. In the late 1930s, the New Amsterdam Theatre was transformed into a movie palace. The theatre remained a movie palace until it "temporarily" closed in 1982.

At the time Vanya on 42nd Street was filmed, the theatre had been abandoned for over ten years and was in a state of severe disrepair. Rats had chewed through much of the stage rigging, and flooding and mice made the stage unusable, so that they were restricted to a section of what had been the orchestra.^[1]

For the film production, some rows of seats were removed and a small platform was built for the cast and film crew. Shortly after the production of Vanya, the New Amsterdam was leased to The Walt Disney Company. Disney restored the theatre to its grand original design and reopened it in 1997.

Reception

Critical response

Vanya on 42nd Street received mostly positive reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 89% approval rating, based on 37 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "Beautiful performances and the subtle hand of master Louis Malle make this adaptation of Chekov's Uncle Vanya an eccentric presentation of an enduring classic."^[2] Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times. "As he did with My Dinner with Andre", Ebert wrote, "[Malle shows] he is the master of a visual style suited to tightly-encompassed material. There is not a shot that calls attention to itself, and yet not a shot that is without thought."^[3]

Year-end lists

1st – Peter Rainer, Los Angeles Times^[4]
2nd – Stephen Hunter, The Baltimore Sun^[5]
2nd – Michael Mills, The Palm Beach Post^[6]
3rd – Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News^[7]
5th – Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times^[4]
5th – David Elliott, The San Diego Union-Tribune^[8]
7th – Gene Siskel, The Chicago Tribune^[9]
9th – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times^[4]
9th – Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News^[10]
Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Mike Clark, USA Today^[11]
Top 10 (not ranked) – Betsy Pickle, Knoxville News-Sentinel^[12]
Top 10 runner-ups (not ranked) – Janet Maslin, The New York Times^[13]
Honorable mention – Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News^[14]
Honorable mention – William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer^[15]

References

^ ^a ^b Vineberg, Steven. "Vanya on 42nd Street: An American Vanya". Criterion Collection. Retrieved 1 March 2012.
^ "Vanya on 42nd Street". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
^ Ebert, Roger (December 23, 1994). "Vanya On 42nd Street Movie Review (1994)". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved May 9, 2016.
^ ^a ^b ^c Turan, Kenneth (December 25, 1994). "1994: YEAR IN REVIEW : No Weddings, No Lions, No Gumps". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 20, 2020.
^ Hunter, Stephen (December 25, 1994). "Films worthy of the title 'best' in short supply MOVIES". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
^ Mills, Michael (December 30, 1994). "It's a Fact: 'Pulp Fiction' Year's Best". The Palm Beach Post (Final ed.). p. 7.
^ Strauss, Bob (December 30, 1994). "At the Movies: Quantity Over Quality". Los Angeles Daily News (Valley ed.). p. L6.
^ Elliott, David (December 25, 1994). "On the big screen, color it a satisfying time". The San Diego Union-Tribune (1, 2 ed.). p. E=8.
^ Siskel, Gene (December 25, 1994). "The Year's Best Movies". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
^ Denerstein, Robert (January 1, 1995). "Perhaps It Was Best to Simply Fade to Black". Rocky Mountain News (Final ed.). p. 61A.
^ Clark, Mike (December 28, 1994). "Scoring with true life, 'True Lies' and 'Fiction.'". USA Today (Final ed.). p. 5D.
^ Pickle, Betsy (December 30, 1994). "Searching for the Top 10... Whenever They May Be". Knoxville News-Sentinel. p. 3.
^ Maslin, Janet (December 27, 1994). "CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK; The Good, Bad and In-Between In a Year of Surprises on Film". The New York Times. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
^ Lovell, Glenn (December 25, 1994). "The Past Picture Show the Good, the Bad and the Ugly -- a Year Worth's of Movie Memories". San Jose Mercury News (Morning Final ed.). p. 3.
^ Arnold, William (December 30, 1994). "'94 Movies: Best and Worst". Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Final ed.). p. 20.