Together for ‘Uncle Vanya’ and in Life

Michael Langham and Helen Burns, British co-directors of “Uncle Vanya,” opening today at UCLA’s Geffen Playhouse, did not immediately leap to the defense of Theater with a capital T when asked why a modern-day UCLA student should see an Anton Chekhov play about unrequited love in pre-Revolutionary Russia instead of, say, going to a movie.

“Well, you’d have to say what the movie is,” Langham replied mildly.

Langham and Burns, married for more than 40 years and veterans of classical theater in Britain, Canada and the United States for even longer, did eventually argue in favor of a visit to “Vanya” instead of an evening with Martin Lawrence in “Blue Streak.” They insist that this lively production honors the comic intentions of the playwright as well as the heartbreak of the story, rather than wallowing in Stygian gloom.

And, though she says it ever-so-politely, Burns’ predictable preference for live theater over film is clear in her words: “It’s the difference between fresh salmon and canned salmon. I love the movies, but as a student, I would choose the Chekhov. You’ll realize that, in 1900, people were worried about the same things you’re worried about.”

Still, multiple decades of artistic and personal partnership have left this charming couple (they decline to discuss age but are most likely hovering around 80) with a refreshingly open-minded view of life and art and a willingness to consider both sides no matter what the question.

It takes that sort of open-mindedness to share the director’s vision. This is not the first time the pair have jointly directed “Uncle Vanya”; they performed the same trick in 1997 at the Atlantic Theatre Festival in Nova Scotia.

Included in that cast were current cast members Peter Donat, Megan Follows and Stephen Pelinski. Christina Haag, who portrays Sonya, studied under Langham at the Juilliard School. Cast members Robert Foxworth and Fred Applegate are new to working with the pair.

The opportunity to repeat “Vanya” was especially attractive to the couple because Langham, who has long associations with Canada’s Stratford Festival and Minneapolis’ Guthrie Theater, is also directing a Broadway production of Noel Coward’s “Waiting in the Wings,” which opens in December starring Lauren Bacall. That commitment left not enough time to start from scratch directing an unfamiliar play for the Geffen. Langham and Burns have also co-directed Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” as well as productions of “Twelfth Night” and “A Doll’s House.”

Burns, an actress trained at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, has been directing with her husband since 1994, the time of her Olivier Award-winning performance in the West End production of Arthur Miller’s “The Last Yankee.” A chronic back injury caused by tap-dancing in the show night after night on a steeply raked stage caused Burns to put her acting career on hold for her continuing recuperation.

‘Disagreeing Is Fascinating’

In a recent conversation over their usual sparrow-sized dinners, Burns and Langham said natural division of labor has kept their co-directing partnership from ever degenerating into a battle of egos. After a rehearsal, they compare notes, but they do it at home--and Langham takes the sole responsibility of giving those notes to the actors the next day.

“It’s not easy to do; it’s unusual, I suppose, because the risks are great of confusing people, or dividing people,” Langham mused. “Most of what I do has to do with the physical aspect of the staging. And when it comes to costume or any detail of this time, this period, she is extraordinarily astute.”

“People ask us, ‘Do you have rows? What do you do when you disagree?’ Well, disagreeing is fascinating,” Burns said. “It’s absolutely marvelous to have that kind of relationship, though maybe it’s difficult to believe.”

Actor Donat concurred with their assessment. “Michael is the main director of the two,” he said. “He’s the one who stages it, conceives it visually and all that. Helen is there as a marvelous consultant, an idea person to bounce things off of. She is the quieter of the two; Michael is more active. She thinks more like an actress.”

In comparing his first Langham-Burns “Vanya” to the current one, Donat said, “In terms of design, it is not that different, but it is in terms of finding the richness in the script. With Chekhov, the more you look, the more you see. With some writers, the more you look, the more the play evaporates.”

It is hard to believe a couple with such a symbiotic relationship ever missed a step--but theirs is a marriage of two separate parts. “We separated because I went mad at one point in my life, and married someone else,” Langham said simply. “For seven years, we were separated. Then, we came together again, and you can’t come together on the same terms again. We came together on new terms.

“I regret my lack of appreciation of what I possessed. But it made me realize the value of what I possessed before.”

Added Langham, “Shakespeare’s interpretation of love was an affliction, a madness. No one in their right senses would give it consideration. In Shakespeare’s view, there is a great contrast between women in love and men in love. Women are able to keep a reasonable balance between the heart and the head. Men go completely to pieces. We’re a mess!”

Listening to Burns, this would seem to be the case. “If you are in the state of being in love, I don’t think you’re in a fit state to be married,” she observed. “Because you have no judgment, you think the person you are in love with is the most perfect person in the world. . . . Love is a process of learning not what you want but what you need.

“I don’t know who said it, but [someone has said] being in love is not two people looking into each other’s eyes, but two people looking in the same direction.”

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* “Uncle Vanya,” Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.; Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 4 and 8:30 p.m.; Sundays 2 and 7 p.m. Through Oct. 31. $20-$42. (310) 208-5454.