Get the latest gossip
We See You, Andrew Scott
The actor creates a full, heartbreaking world inside his solo performance of Vanya.
The production, directed by Sam Yates and designed by Rosanna Vize (movingly, they also share co-creator credits with Scott and Stephens), racked up plenty of its own accolades — and though shows beloved on one side of the Atlantic don’t always stick the landing on the other, this one vaults across with wit and grace. To its creators’ great credit, the show’s form registers not as a celebrity stunt—or even, whatever the reality, as one of the manysoloperformances producers have gravitated toward in the era of COVID-altered theater—but as an intimate and sincere actor’s laboratory, a chance to turn one of Chekhov’s rangy, yearning ensembles into a kind of revelatory Russian doll, messing about with his inimitable voice in order to channel it to thrilling effect. It’s that simple confession by Ivan: “I just want you to look at me.” It could be an actor speaking, admitting to the primal need that undergirds the profession — and indeed, Vize styles the broad stage at the Lucille Lortel like a rehearsal room, mismatched chairs and fluorescent lights, a tea and coffee station with a sink and a mini-fridge, a long mirror covered by a curtain, a free-standing wooden door, a card table with a prop bottle of vodka.
Or read this on VULTURE
