Character Analysis
Vershinin is the commanding officer of the army base—the position that the Prozorov's daddy-o used to hold—and he's also Masha's love interest. He's philosophical by nature and loves to talk. Like, loves it. This for some reason is a real turn-on for Masha (we guess we get it—it does seem pretty dull in this town), but it can come across as either really tedious or kind of funny, depending what kind of actor you've got.
Here's an example. When Masha complains about being too educated, he has an answer: "After you've gone there will be six more, let's say, like you, then twelve, and so on, until finally people like you will be in the majority. In two or thee hundred years, life on earth will be unimaginably beautiful, astonishing. Man needs a life like that, and if we don't have it yet we must wait for it, dream of it, prepare for it, and that's the reason we must be able to see and know more than our fathers and grandfathers" (1.143). Thanks for the lecture, dude.
Vershinin takes the long-term (and long-winded) view—kind of like Trofimov in The Cherry Orchard, who believes that "humanity is moving onward, toward a higher truth and a higher happiness, higher than anyone can imagine" (4.29). As for who is going to build that future, Vershinin doesn't care too much. Even though he has children, he sees them as only part of the future, not its entirety (unlike soccer-mom extraordinaire Natasha).
Vershinin also has a crazy wife who offends his desire for beauty, philosophical or otherwise. She's always doing unpleasant things like taking too many pills or abandoning her daughters in a fire. Vershinin regrets that "all my life I've lived in dumpy apartments with two chairs and a sofa, and the stove always smokes. And the one thing I've always wanted was a lot of flowers like this" (1.148).
He's attracted to Masha's mystery and passion; he's amused by her superstition and bewitched by her eyes. But in the end, he leaves her. Duty-bound, he takes off without a lot of ceremony when it's time for the army to march. "Let me go—I've got to go," he says as Masha sobs violently (4.140). Looks like philosophy can only get you so far.