Act I

The play opens on a cloudy afternoon in a garden behind the family estate of Serebryakov. Marina, the old nurse, is knitting a stocking, while Astrov, the doctor who has been called to tend to one of Professor Serebryakov's ailments, is pacing nearby. Astrov laments that he's aged tending the sick and that life "itself is boring, stupid, dirty." Having no one to love, he complains that his emotions have grown numb. When he worries that people won't remember him, Marina answers: "People won't remember but God will remember."

When Vanya enters, yawning from a nap, the three complain about how all order has been disrupted since the professor and his wife, Yelena, arrived. As they're talking, Serebryakov, Yelena, Sonya, and Telegin return from a walk. Vanya calls the professor "a learned old dried mackerel," criticizing him for his pomposity and the small-ness of his achievements...