ABSTRACT
Mr. Harcourt Williams as Uncle Vanya was not nearly restless enough to satisfy me. In the passages (and there are many in the part) where plaintive, passive depression predominates, he was excellent, and at the end where Sonia makes her dim little speech about the time when all tears will be wiped away, while poor Vanya can only sit and stare dumbly in front of him, Mr. Harcourt Williams achieved pathos in a high and noble degree. But the actor who plays this part must remember that however much of a surprise for the audience Vanya's hysterical homicidal impulse may be at the end of Act III - and it should be ‘a surprise,’ hitting as suddenly between wind and water, laughter and tears - it has to be prepared by Vanya's demeanour before it occurs; so that the second after the two shots ring out we know in a flash how incongruously like the gentle Vanya it was to have been swept into violence by a nerve-storm. This is where Mr. Harcourt Williams's interpretation failed; it did not lead up to that lurid ludicrous moment.
