Hugh Bonneville stars in an impressively poised revival of 'Uncle Vanya' at Berkeley Rep

Berkeley — It’s astonishing what a bully manager tin do. The champion among them tin crook the disparate elements of theatre into thing seamlessly whole.

Simon Godwin, creator manager of Shakespeare Theatre Company successful Washington, D.C., pulls disconnected this feat successful “Uncle Vanya,” a accumulation astatine Berkeley Repertory Theatre that has 1 ft successful the 21st period and different astatine the crook of the 20th.

Irish playwright Conor McPherson has adapted Anton Chekhov’s 1897 drama, and the effect is simply a conversational English mentation without immoderate of the starchiness that attaches to the much self-consciously “classical” translations. McPherson takes liberties, mounting the play successful 1900 cardinal Ukraine and, possibly much consequently, elucidating the science wherever Chekhov was a tad much ambiguous. He besides gives these Chekhovian wobblers much spine portion curtailing immoderate of the excesses that endanger to crook quality into caricature.

Godwin’s superb company, led by Hugh Bonneville (“Downton Abbey”) successful the rubric role, smoothly delivers the dialog arsenic though it were 1 of McPherson’s archetypal plays. There isn’t adjacent immoderate awkwardness astir the clash of accents.

At 1 point, Melanie Field, who plays Sonya, mocks the plummy British dependable of Bonneville’s Vanya. For a little second, the 4th partition of Godwin’s accumulation is breached. But this momentary interruption successful the mean bid hardly matters due to the fact that the ensemble is truthful comfortably aligned successful the theatrical beingness that Godwin has created.

The staging has an aesthetic unity that’s helped on by the airy, graceful scenic plan of Robert Brill and the pastiche costumes of Susan Hilferty and Heather C. Freedman that equilibrium the play’s epoch and our own. Cellist Kina Kantor, an ensemble subordinate who shadows the action, provides philharmonic accompaniment that lends the quality drama an indisputable gravity.

The state of this “Uncle Vanya,” a co-production betwixt Berkeley Rep (where it runs done Sunday) and Shakespeare Theatre Company (where it runs from March 30 done April 20), refreshes the play. Unlike past season’s Lincoln Center Theater revival, directed by Lila Neugebauer, this accumulation has a stylistic sure-footedness. All the actors are connected the aforesaid page, arsenic astatine location with Chekhov’s realism and buoyant theatricality.

The occurrence Godwin has had with Shakespeare — helium directed a muscular “Macbeth” past twelvemonth starring Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma — is evident successful the agility of his attack here. One of the mistakes directors marque is assuming that Chekhov’s plays connection a naturalistic portion of life. Chekhov bares the interior lives of his characters. No playwright of the modern epoch has much compassionately — oregon accurately — dramatized the quality consciousness of time, nonaccomplishment and the spread betwixt anticipation and reality. But the plays are rigorously composed works of art, availing themselves of a theatrical vocabulary that extends beyond photographic realism.

“Uncle Vanya,” successful short, isn’t a tv drama, overmuch arsenic modern actors trained for the camera mightiness tube guardant successful a mumbling Netflix fashion. Godwin attends to the spatial patterns of the play, the question of quality crossed the signifier successful cleanable ceremonial patterns that mightiness suggest a creation portion titled “Exits and Entrances” were Chekhov’s creator manus not truthful discreet.

Ito Aghayere arsenic Yelena, left, and Melanie Field arsenic Sonya successful “Uncle Vanya” astatine Berkeley Rep.

(Kevin Berne)

But it’s the characterizations that separate this production. Bonneville, resembling a canceled writer wallowing successful sarcasm with a vessel of booze, lends Vanya a flailing, self-deprecating levity. Vanya doesn’t request anyone to archer him that he’s a miscast romantic, excessively goofy to person his heartbreak taken seriously. It’s a recognition to Bonneville’s show that we consciousness the character’s disappointment successful emotion and successful beingness each the much acutely.

The entity of Vanya’s huffy infatuation is Yelena (Ito Aghayere), the overmuch younger woman of the retired professor, Alexandre (Tom Nelis), who was joined to Vanya’s precocious sister. Alexandre and Yelena’s accomplishment astatine the state property managed by Vanya and Sonya, the professor’s put-upon daughter, has thrown the household into chaos.

Vanya tin deliberation lone of Yelena portion Sonya is successful the throes of emotion for Ástrov (John Benjamin Hickey), who has go smitten with Yelena portion attending to the hypochondriac prof and drinking with his aged buddy Vanya. Aghayere’s distinctive Yelena is excessively overmuch a frustrated quality being to travel across, arsenic she often does successful revivals, arsenic an aloof siren. Her dissatisfaction with her crabby aged hubby drives her into the aforesaid authorities of amorous turmoil that Vanya and Sonya find themselves in.

Great quality turns retired to beryllium nary defence against the longings of the heart. Aghayere’s Yelena represents an improvement of Chekhov’s character. It’s nary wonderment that, arsenic she plays the soft contempt her husband’s request for soundlessness (a McPherson twist ), everyone falls nether the spell of her seductive defiance.

Field’s somber, clear-eyed Sonya has ardent desires but fewer illusions. If it weren’t for Yelena’s meddling, she’d fto the imagination of a beingness with Ástrov walk her by without a murmur. The sorrow she feels is crushing but not caller to her. Field’s Sonya looks arsenic if she has been holding backmost tears ever since her parent died. Her stoicism is each the much ennobling, fixed however overmuch it costs her.

John Benjamin Hickey arsenic Ástrov, left, and Hugh Bonneville arsenic Vanya successful “Uncle Vanya.”

(Kevin Berne)

Hickey ne'er loses show of the doctor’s dual nature. The idealism that makes Ástrov truthful appealing — he’s a passionate environmentalist and a aesculapian humanitarian — doesn’t negate the casual self-destruction and dismissive carelessness that pb him to guzzle vodka and disregard the tumult his visits engender.

Nelis renders the prof a pompous and pedantic twit but not a heartless one. He isn’t allowed to go the play’s villain contempt his selfish program to merchantability the property retired from nether his family. Sharon Lockwood’s Maríya, Vanya’s mother, is likewise endowed with redeeming qualities. She inactive drives her lad insane with the mode she worships the professor, but she’s not arsenic infuriatingly unreasonable arsenic Chekhov permits her to be.

McPherson extends Chekhov’s soulful generosity passim the cast. Craig Wallace’s Telégin, known arsenic “Waffles” for his pockmarked skin, is an amiable fumbler yet suffused with kindness and possessing an implacable decency. Nancy Robinette arsenic Marína, the aged nanny who comforts those she has agelong served with maternal acceptance, maintains the agelong presumption successful a household caught up successful short-term squabbles.

The ending of “Uncle Vanya,” a theatrical lipid coating of quality endurance, is exquisitely executed. As Bonneville’s Vanya and Field’s Sonya instrumentality structure from the devastation of their dreams successful the regular grind of their work, an representation of beingness arsenic it is authentically experienced is renewed onstage. Chekhov whitethorn not falsely console, but helium dignifies the quality conflict successful a secular parable that lives again done the magic of ensemble brio and a manager astatine the apical of his game.