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13
SATURDAY
Poor Uncle Vanya’s clearly got problems, what with having labored on a farm all his life to support his art-history-professing brother-in-law only to fall for the professor’s Lithuanian-accented new wife. But nearly all the supporting players in the Classika Theatre’s production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya seem to have contracted the title character’s manic despair as well, venting their own doomed yearnings by screaming, heaving, or getting falling-down drunk. It’s difficult to determine whether they’re bemoaning the bleakness of their lives or the incongruous set design (involving autumn leaves and black-and-white pictures stuck to muslin walls), but Kim Curtis is nevertheless enjoyable as a sardonic, proto-tree-hugging doctor—especially when he shouts at Brian MacIan’s sweet-natured, madcap Vanya. The show begins at 8 p.m. (and runs to March 28; see City List for other dates) at the Classika Theatre, 4041 S. 28th St., Arlington. $22. (703) 824-6200. (Bidisha Banerjee)