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<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000"><PRE style="BACKGROUND: white; TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Georgia><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: ">Shaw Festival’s ‘Uncle Vanya’ offers melancholy by the </SPAN></B><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN lang=RU style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-ansi-language: ru"><FONT color=#212121>центнер</FONT></SPAN></B></FONT><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: "></SPAN></B></PRE>
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style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT face=Georgia></FONT></SPAN></B> </P>
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face=Georgia>Bob Abelman</FONT></SPAN><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"'></SPAN></P>
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align=center><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
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face=Georgia>Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning
Journal</FONT></SPAN></I><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"'></SPAN></P>
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face=Georgia>Member, International Association of Theatre
Critics</FONT></SPAN><SPAN
style='FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"'></SPAN></P>
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face="Times New Roman"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT face=Georgia>Anton Chekhov sure is a buzz-kill.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT face=Georgia></FONT></SPAN> </P>
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face=Georgia><FONT color=#333333>It’s been said that, through stories like
“<SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; mso-bidi-font-family: arial; mso-bidi-font-style: italic">The
Seagull” and “The Three Sisters,” </SPAN>the late-19<SUP>th</SUP> century
Russian playwright explores the depths of human nature by crossing the fine line
between comedy and tragedy.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-FAMILY: ; BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; BACKGROUND-REPEAT: repeat; BACKGROUND-ATTACHMENT: scroll; BACKGROUND-POSITION: 0% 0%; COLOR: ; mso-bidi-font-family: arial"><FONT
color=#333333 face=Georgia></FONT></SPAN> </P>
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style="FONT-FAMILY: ; BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; BACKGROUND-REPEAT: repeat; BACKGROUND-ATTACHMENT: scroll; BACKGROUND-POSITION: 0% 0%; COLOR: ; mso-bidi-font-family: arial"><FONT
face=Georgia><FONT color=#333333>Perhaps, but his “Uncle Vanya” certainly tilts
toward the tragic.</FONT></FONT></SPAN></P>
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color=#333333 face=Georgia></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT face=Georgia>It takes place on the deteriorating
country estate of the widower Serebryakov (David Schurmann), an aging academic
who now lives in the city.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Running
the estate is his daughter Sonya (Marla McLean) and his brother-in-law Vanya
(Neil Barclay), who use the earnings from the property’s farm to support
Serebryakov.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>He returns with the
intention of selling the estate to help support his new, much younger wife
Yelena (Moya O’Connell), whose beauty and disengagement entrances
everyone.</FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT face=Georgia></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT face=Georgia>The reason it does is because everyone
in this play is needy and hopeless and yearning for the one thing they will
never obtain, and they see Yelena as the source of their satisfaction:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Serebrayakov seeks respect, Vanya wants
to be appreciated, Sonya desires love, the country doctor Astrov (Patrick
McManus) pines for any kind of connection, and so on.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT face=Georgia></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT face=Georgia>As for Yelena, she wants everything she
has sacrificed by marrying this old, ill, self-involved man, which is nothing
that can be supplied by anyone in the room.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT face=Georgia></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT face=Georgia>Shakespeare famously wrote “all the
world’s a stage.”<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>For Chekhov, all
the world’s a stage of chronic depression.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT face=Georgia></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT face=Georgia>Artistic director Jackie Maxwell not
only selected this challenging play for her final season at the Shaw, and placed
herself as director, but chose Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright Annie
Baker’s adaptation of the work.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT face=Georgia></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal
style="BACKGROUND: white; MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 12pt"><FONT
face=Georgia><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style='BORDER-TOP: windowtext 1pt; FONT-FAMILY: ; BORDER-RIGHT: windowtext 1pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: windowtext 1pt; COLOR: ; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; PADDING-TOP: 0in; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; BORDER-LEFT: windowtext 1pt; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in'>For
more of this review, go to </SPAN></I><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style='BORDER-TOP: windowtext 1pt; FONT-FAMILY: ; BORDER-RIGHT: windowtext 1pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: windowtext 1pt; COLOR: ; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; PADDING-TOP: 0in; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; BORDER-LEFT: windowtext 1pt; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in'><FONT
color=#0563c1>www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/</FONT></SPAN></I><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style='BORDER-TOP: windowtext 1pt; FONT-FAMILY: ; BORDER-RIGHT: windowtext 1pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: windowtext 1pt; COLOR: ; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; PADDING-TOP: 0in; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; BORDER-LEFT: windowtext 1pt; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in'>.
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