HELEN Wilson is directing an Anton Chekhov play for York Settlement Community Players for the third time.

After Three Sisters at the York Theatre Royal Studio in March 2010 and The Cherry Orchard at Friargate Theatre in September 2015, she returns to the Studio for Uncle Vanya from February 28 to March 10.

Adapted from the 1898 Russian text by London playwright Michael Frayn, the play opens with an elderly professor and his beautiful young second wife returning to their country estate from the city, setting chaos in motion. Uncle Vanya, the brother of the professor's first wife, is thrown into an emotional maelstrom in Chekhov's poignant comedy of love, loss and desire.

"Uncle Vanya is in many ways a play ahead of its time since there's a character who's concerned about deforestation and its effect on the environment. It's far from being an earnest play, though. A poignant comedy best describes it," says Helen.

"Chekhov loved nature and said that if we mistreated nature, in 100 years we would pay the price. Here we are, 120 years later, and we've still not learned."

She is delighted to be directing a Studio production once more. "It lends intimacy to the play and of all Chekhov's plays it's the most intimate with the most monologues," says Helen. "You really feel the characters are talking to the audience. There's not a lot of space on stage, nor a lot of room backstage, so it makes you think about the stage furniture, the props, and how fluid the production must be.

"The most wonderful plays and the most magical of experiences can be ruined by pauses as ' the burglars', as Katie Posner [former Pilot Theatre associate director] calls them, come on and take the scenery off, and we don't want that.

York Press:

"Russians are physically more open than English characters, much more expressive," says Uncle Vanya director Helen Wilson

"That was one of the things I learned from Three Sisters where there were 16 characters and it was a much more complicated play in terms of costumes and getting furniture on and off stage, but Uncle Vanya is the most pared-down of his plays."

Chekhov wrote comedies, just not English-style comedies. "You're fighting against huge prejudices all the time when you stage Chekhov here; we've all seen drawing-room Chekhov that are sub-'The Forsyte Saga," says Helen.

"Russians are physically more open than English characters, much more expressive – that's why Chekhov is more popular in America than here because they're also more open – and the genius of Chekhov is that someone will be pouring their heart out and the old codger next to them won't have heard a thing. He juxtaposes the comic and the tragic like Woody Allen does, like Alan Ayckbourn does.

"The great playwrights write about the great themes: what am I here for; where am I going? Audiences feel that connection, like when Vanya says, 'I haven't lived'; it's a very powerful emotion and it becomes a truly tragi-comic scene."

Looking ahead, Chekhov enthusiast Helen would love to direct The Seagull. "It's the most tricky of his plays; it was his first; he was young and that showed, but though it might seem like I'm doing his plays backwards, I'm pleased to leave it to the last because doing three so far, you get to understand how it all works, as it's all about the tone and mood," she says.

"You can see that Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya have elegiac endings, but The Seagull is basically suicidal, more Ibsenesque."

York Settlement Community Players present Uncle Vanya, York Theatre Royal Studio, February 28 to March 10, 7.45pm. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk