Judd is a writer and book reviewer with an M.F.A. in English from the University of Michigan and a B.A. from Yale. In this essay, she discusses various the methods of indirect action employed by Chekhov in Uncle Vanya.

About suffering they were never wrong/ The Old Masters: how well they understood/ Its human position; how it takes place/ While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along. .. . —"Musee des Beaux Arts," W. H. Auden

When it comes to portraying the anguish of the human condition, no other dramatist, past or present, equals Chekhov, especially in Uncle Vanya, his classic of thwarted desire. In practically every scene of the play, the characters give voice to their boredom, pain, and despair, yet Uncle Vanya is also filled with moments of lightness and comedy. Chekhov examines frustration and loss of hope...