Besides the magnificent oeuvre of Bach, the work of art that has spoken most profoundly and insistently to me the last several years has been Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, as particularly manifested in Louis Malle's film Vanya on 42nd Street, which in turn, was based David Mamet's adaptation. I've long wanted to write in depth about Uncle Vanya but have yet to muster the focus and energy to do so.

But I feel that I'm entering a new phase in my life in which I'm letting go of some old things to embrace a new vision. Part of that transition, I feel, will be aided in looking at why Uncle Vanya has meant so much to me and why I now feel the desire to move on.

So now I want to play a bit.

I know that I cannot write a finished essay on Uncle Vanya and my life in one go. But I want to use this space to sketch some impressions, ideas, and thoughts on the way to writing that essay or essays. What follows below, then, is "Take One". (I don't know whether anything I write below will have much to do with Uncle Vanya per se....)

Ever have the experience of being understood by a film? Weird isn't it? That's how I've felt about Vanya on 42nd Street since the second time I saw it. The first time, I fell asleep and except for the very last monologue, the film was too long.

The characters talk, kinda like in real life
But just a tad more thoughtful
No a lot more thoughtful.

Time has slowed down
Lethargy has set in
And we see our people
Suspended

Usually, they are moving too fast
Too many patients to heal
Too much hay to produce
Too many articles to write
But when you stop
Oh no, don't stop
You begin to feel

The pain that does not go away
The sense of lives wasted
With no hope in sight -- ever
Well, maybe in heaven,
If you can trust in such a thing

Love unrequited
Bride lost
Big visions, big dreams
Reduced
From the thousand year plan
To drunken steps nowhere

Normally we don't talk
About Big Ideas
Mortality, Ultimate Worth
The Judgement of History
Of Future Generations

It's so nice(?) -- no, healing
Freeing, Gripping
To hear real people
Talk
Cry
Sigh
Laugh
Despair
Hope

How we deceive ourselves
Seeing neither the bad
Or the good
Or just the plain human
In ourselves?

The crisis in me
I have dubbed
The pre-midlife midlife crisis
Found voice in Vanya.

Many have gone before me.
Many come after me.
I am gripped by
What?

I was a scholar too
So I thought
It's hard to give up
Dreams of being well-known

I want to be that beautiful man
To be loved as such
But I am found out
To be no better
Than all who came before
And all who come after.

What is my drink?
My unconfessed dream?

Academics don't change much
In 100 years, do they?
We/They still spew forth
Like a farm machine.
We are a funny, funny bunch.

If I can laugh at myself
Then indeed I will be free
Or freer than all that I have ever known.

What do women want?
Actually, what do men want?
I don't even know what I want.