"Uncle Vanya" is an adaptation of the untranslatable Greek play "Leshy". It is known that in "Uncle Vanya" many of the characteristics of Chekhovian theater take their first complete expression. Specifically, the avoidance of a schematic and conventional myth and the dense, "hidden" life of words and movements, the richness of which is poetically revealed by their pulling up from the substrate of the work.

The play balances between two dominant moods: the unstable melancholy and its subversively ironic view. The cast of characters in "Uncle Vanya" is the smallest numerically of any other work by Chekhov. It is a creative synthesis of characteristics from the characters participating in "The Woods' Spirit".

By reducing the dramatic personas to eight (excluding the worker), Chekhov composed the personalities of the dramatic characters with the aim of conveying and contrasting different human qualities based on their reactions to situations. At the same time, we recognize a proximity of the characters that conceals discomfort in their coexistence.

Chekhov places the characters in special circumstances to observe conflicts and escapes. Marital and blood ties prove to be less decisive for the behavior of the characters than the corresponding stimuli from direct communication with one another.

Based on the primary element of age, the dramatic characters in the work could be distinguished into two quartets. Firstly, the duo of Serebryakov and Telegin, where the proud professor of academic praises and privileges is nothing but a complaining and jealous man, while Telegin is a man who responded with tender generosity to the betrayal of the woman who left him almost immediately after marriage.

If, indeed, Telegin is ashamed because he is a "parasite", Serebryakov appears to ignore his own parasitism. Among the behaviors of the older women in the work, the reading of brochures by Maria Vasilyevna and the knitting of Marina seem to serve, in a similar way, as "painkillers".

The "earthly" Marina, obedient to the natural cycle of life, with her daily life focused on the practical issues of the stable and the kitchen, also makes strict comments about human behaviors, while the narrow-minded Maria Vasilyevna appears completely blind to what happens to her fellow human beings.

(from the introduction by Konstantinos Kyriakou)