of hard work in this lifetime and rest and beauty in the next.

Yelena Andreevna
A twenty-seven-year-old beauty and charmer, Yelena is married to the already elderly professor Serebryakov. Like her namesake Helen of Troy, Yelena is a woman whose beauty stirs men to action though she herself suffers from inertia. She freely admits that she’s idle and bored, and she believes that any type of useful activity, such as nursing or teaching, is beyond her. Astrov jokes, ‘‘Both of you, he [Serebryakov] and you—infected us with your idleness.’’ Yelena admits that she married out of true feeling, but that she no longer loves her husband and is now very unhappy. She dismisses Vanya’s affections but is clearly attracted to Astrov. Directors disagree about Yelena’s character. Sometimes she is portrayed as beautiful and vapid, flirtatious and cruel. Others see her as a vibrant life force that woos men away from their goals and therefore brings about their unintentional destruction, an idea that’s supported by Astrov’s statement, ‘‘It’s strange how I am convinced that if you should stay on, there would be an enormous devastation.’’

Dr. Mikhail Lvovich Astrov
As Act I opens, Astrov, the village doctor, is lamenting that he’s grown old and has not had a single day off in more than ten years. At times, Astrov appears to be close to desperation: ‘‘I work harder than anyone in the district, fate strikes me one blow after another and there are times when I suffer unbearably—but for me there is no light shining in the distance.’’ In addition to his other frustrations, Astrov is haunted by the death of one of his patients, a railroad switchman, who died of typhus under his care. Yelena describes Astrov as having a tired, nervous, interesting face; he is a vegetarian who’s passionate about nature and interested in the conservation of the woods, but he also drinks heavily and is curiously oblivious to Sonya’s love for him. Many parallels exist between Vanya and Astrov; both feel beaten down by life, both are attracted to Yelena, and both believe they’ve squandered their talents and are now living lives of vulgarity and frustration.

Professor Alexander Vladimirovich Serebryakov
A retired professor who was regarded as a Don Juan in his younger days, Serebryakov is now married to the beautiful Yelena Andreevna. Serebryakov is Sonya’s father and was married to Vanya’s sister, Vera, who has since died. The professor has settled on the estate of his first wife because he can’t afford to live anywhere else. Vanya criticizes him for striding around like a god, yet having achieved nothing of significance in his field (art history). Serebryakov is idolized by his mother-in-law, Maria, but Vanya despises him, having come to view him as an old fraud who’s sapped everyone of their vitality. Serebryakov sets off a firestorm by suggesting that the estate, which belongs to Sonya, be sold so that he and Yelena can buy a villa in Finland.

SonyaSee Sofia Alexandrovna

Ilya Ilich Telegin
An impoverished landowner, Telegin lives on the estate and dines regularly with the family. Chekhov describes his speech as high-pitched and pretentious. Nicknamed ‘‘Waffles’’ because of his pockmarked face, Telegin argues for faithfulness, describing how his wife left him the day after their wedding because of his appearance, yet he remained loyal to her, supporting the children she had with her lover.

Marina Timofeevna
Chekhov describes Marina, the old nurse, as a plain, small woman; she is a soothing presence among the frustrated, lovelorn, and angry characters on the estate. Overtly nurturing, she is often associated with food or drink (‘‘A cup of lime-flower tea or tea with raspberry jam and it will all pass,’’ she says in an attempt to console Sonya).

Uncle Vanya
The Uncle Vanya of the title, Voynitsky is forty-seven years old, stylishly dressed, and yawning when he first appears in Act I. A year before the play opens, he realized that he’d wasted his life by working to support the professor, whose great genius turned out to have been illusory. Vanya is in love with Yelena, whom he urges to take better advantage of her youth than he did. Discontented and angry, Vanya is derailed by his own impotence and anger; he continually makes nasty jabs at Serebryakov. After months of grumbling, Vanya erupts into violence when the professor proposes that the estate be sold so that he and Yelena can purchase a villa in Finland. Vanya shoots at the professor but misses. Having wasted his talents and squandered his life, Voynitsky has become a peripheral figure who supports his sister’s family, rather than living his own life. Even his designation in the title of the play—he’s known as someone else’s uncle—suggests how far from the center of the action his life is lived.

Maria Vasilevna Voinitskaya
Maria Vasilevna is the widow of a privy councillor, Vanya’s mother, and Serebryakov’s mother-in-law. A liberal with an unwavering commitment to women’s rights, she adores the professor and is content to spend her life furthering his work. As Vanya describes her: ‘‘My old magpie Maman is still babbling about the emancipation of women; with one eye she looks into the grave and with the other she rummages through her learned books for the dawn of a new life.’’ Throughout most of the play, Maria reads or writes without looking up, lost in thought.

Ivan Petrovich VoynitskySeeUncle Vanya

WafflesSee Ilya Ilich Telegin