Billie Andersson, Juan Pablo Toro, Evan Olson, Scarlett Strasberg (Photo: Amy Goossens)
Uncle Vanya
by Deb Miller on June 19, 2026
Shakespeare Downtown is now inviting everyone for its 10th anniversary season of free outdoor summer performances of the classics. This year’s offering, at Battery Park’s historic Castle Clinton National Monument, is a limited engagement of Chekhov’s 1897 masterwork Uncle Vanya, directed and translated by the company’s co-founder Geoffrey Horne. Complimentary tickets are available at the door at 5:45 pm, for each evening’s 6:30 show.
Chekhov’s tragicomedy of frustration and regrets, unrealized dreams and unsatisfied longings, anger and a failed attempt at vengeance, is set in Russia in the 1800s, at a financially declining country estate long managed and inhabited by the titular Vanya (Evan Olson) and his niece Sonya (Scarlett Strasberg). They live there along with his mother Maria (Elizabeth Ruf), but controlled by Sonya’s father, the elderly, infirm, retired Professor Aleksandr Serebryakov (Timothy Nolan), widower of Vanya’s late sister and now remarried to the beautiful and much younger Yelena (Billie Andersson); the two have come to live on the estate. This dysfunctional extended family, attended by “Nanny” Marina (Chantal Van Zyl), is visited daily by the hard-drinking Doctor Mikhail Astrov (Juan Pablo Toro), who is called in to care for Aleksandr but lusts after Yelena, as does Vanya, while the more “plain” Sonya harbors her own unrequited romantic attraction to the Doctor.
Billie Andersson, Timothy Nolan (Photo: Amy Goossens)
The Professor calls them all together to inform them of his decision to sell the property, thereby displacing everyone – including Telegin (Karl Bateman), an impoverished landowner who lives and works at the estate, and the servant Yefim (Narque Cyriaque). As Vanya vents his rage and reflects on their wasted lives, the characters complain, gossip, collide, reveal themselves and their boredom, but fail to do anything to change their unhappy situations or monotonous routines.
Under Horne’s active direction, the performance is centered on a platform stage, with the cast moving on and off, through the central aisle of the audience, and entering and exiting from behind the surrounding draped portico of the open-air fort, making full use of the space and immersing us in the story. Artistic designer Amy Goossens provides a simple period-style set of vintage tables and chairs, props, and costumes that transport us to Chekhov’s era, capture the status and personalities of the characters (Yelena’s gowns are especially lavish), and, like the architecture of Castle Clinton, evoke a 19th-century estate. Carlos Ponce’s sound design enhances the mood with haunting background music and a telling clap of thunder that suggests the storm that’s brewing.
A compelling cast of nine delivers the dark humor and gnawing heartbreak of the unfulfilled characters with clarity and expression, rendering them fully comprehensible, laughably inert, and sadly familiar. Olson’s Vanya is a bundle of suppressed feelings that explode and subside back into his lifelong discontent and complacency. Strasberg’s more even-tempered Sonya encourages him to return to their work on the estate, makes peace with Yelena, with whom she excitedly shares her longing for Astrov, then accepts her own rejection by him, and religiously believes there’s a better world after death.
Evan Olson, Scarlett Strasberg (Photo: Amy Goossens)
Juan Pablo Toro as Dr. Astrov is driven by his appreciation of nature and his longing for Yelena, more than his work as a physician or his ability to love another person. He never fails to express himself with passion and to act on his impulses. Van Zyl’s Marina, who reminds Astrov of his childhood nanny and cares for him, bristles at the disruption of the household’s normal schedule with the arrival of the Professor and Yelena. Nolan’s Aleksandr exhibits all the traits of a hypochondriac and a failure, aware that his professorial career is destined to be forgotten. Andersson turns in a powerful portrayal of Yelena, slowly revealing her mistaken belief that she married her husband for love when it was only his academic knowledge that impressed her, her reciprocated lust for Astrov though she leaves without fully acting on it, and her growing awareness that she has no interest in anything and knows how to do nothing.
Rounding out the company are Elizabeth Ruf as the studious Maria, who is often at odds with her son Vanya and takes the side of Aleksandr in their dispute over the proposed sale, Karl Bateman as the guitar-playing Telegin, and Narque Cyriaque as the stick-tapping and singing Yefim. They are the workmen who provide not only the labor for the estate but also the live music for the production.
Shakespeare Downtown’s Uncle Vanya, surrounded by the stone walls of Castle Clinton, is at once funny and unsettling, with an implicit message to make the most of your life while you can; don’t wait for death to bring you the happiness you need. Don’t wait to catch this entertaining and affecting show.
At Castle Clinton National Monument
Battery Park, 26 Wall St.
Running time: 2 hours, no intermission
Through June 21, 2026
