EXPLORE
a conversation with Heidi Schreck
Anton Chekhov wrote UNCLE VANYA in 1897. Director Lila Neugebauer asked her friend and collaborator Heidi Schreck to translate the script from the original Russian and adapt it for today’s audiences. In an interview with LCT teaching artist Mel House, Schreck explained her process and what she hopes students will get from this production.
HOUSE: This production is called both a translation and an adaptation. Can you say more about that?
SCHRECK: First, I did a literal translation from the original source, consulting with a native Russian speaker who knows this play deeply. Then I took that translation to Lila and started adapting it to what we want this production to sound like, feel like, and look like.
We really wanted to make it feel like it's living right now, at this moment. There was a lot of paring away of things that are specifically Russian or nineteenth century, and really wrestling with the language… to make it sound more accessible to our ears.
The second part of adaptation is I go to rehearsal every day and I am making changes with the actors. As their vision of these characters comes into focus, I shape the language around their voices.
HOUSE: What do you hope high school students might take away from this production?
SCHRECK: I hope that they fall in love with this fantastic writer [Chekhov] who is so funny and emotional and deeply compassionate toward human beings and the lives we live. I want them to get great pleasure and delight in both the humor and tragedy of this story through the hilarious, sad, weird, and fun performances of these great actors.
COLLABORATORS HEIDI SCHRECK AND LILA NEUGEBAUER. PHOTO BY MARC J. FRANKLIN
Anton Chekhov was born in Russia in 1860 and died in 1904. He is famous for writing fourteen plays and over 500 short stories that have been called, "outrageously funny and devastatingly human." Growing up, his mom frequently told Anton and his five siblings stories, which may be why he wanted to become an actor. He would imitate people who visited his father's small grocery store, and act out all sorts of characters. When he got sick at age 15, a German doctor saved his life and inspired him to go to medical school. As a teenager, he began writing short stories that were published in his local newspaper. The fees he was paid for his stories helped put him through medical school. Leo Tolstoy, a famous Russian writer, said that Chekhov would have been a better writer if he'd only spent more time writing and less time being a doctor for the poor. But Chekhov said that medicine gave him intimate contact with people that he would otherwise never have known and these people inspired the characters and themes for his stories and plays. Some of Chekov’s best known works include the plays THE SEAGULL, THE THREE SISTERS and THE CHERRY ORCHARD.
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