Pia Johnson/MTCUncle Vanya is Anton Chekhov’s classic tale of the flawed lives of educated, wealthy Russian elites. First performed in 1899 and set in the time of slow decline of the old rural estate class, the play revolves around the characters of a loosely related family. Now, playwright Joanna Murray-Smith has produced a sterling adaptation, stripping back the historical language to contemporise and bring it into the 21st century.Under director Anne-Louise Sarks, this new production is a sumptuous piece characterised by expert direction and a distinctly modern feel, while retaining the authentic aesthetic of life on a 19th-century provincial estate. Professor Serebryakov (Shaun Micallef) is visiting the family estate with his beautiful young second wife, Yelena (Catherine Văn-Davies), disrupting its usual quiet rhythms. Vanya (Daniel Henshall) is uncle to the professor’s daughter Sonya (Philippa Northeast) – Vanya’s own late sister’s child. Vanya has devoted himself to raising her and managing the estate in her father’s near-constant absence. Sonya, meanwhile, is quietly falling for Astrov (Fayssal Bazzi), the dashing local doctor and conservationist visiting the estate. Bound to the professor by the estate’s financial arrangements, Vanya has spent years in a kind of servitude, sacrificing his own life to sustain a man he once believed brilliant.Repeated and rinsed through, but not diluted, it reminds us of the enduring relevance of Chekhov’s stories and the humanity threading through his work.Collapsing the distance between worldsDann Barber’s set is a celebration of late 19th century gentility, featuring delicate lace tablecloths, birch trees and samovars, brought together with a sumptuous autumnal colour palette of burnt orange, amber and gold. The set bleeds seamlessly into the workings of the theatre itself. There are no wings or curtains. Technical equipment – lights on stands, stacks of props and chairs – sits unashamedly within the audience’s sightlines. Activity is already taking place on stage as we take our seats. Stage managers scatter leaves, move pianos, and shift large set-pieces, moving in and around the actors as the scenes play out. Dann Barber’s set bleeds seamlessly into the workings of the theatre itself. Pia Johnson/MTC This deliberate blurring of lines between the mechanical workings of the stage and the remote, decaying play-world of Vanya’s Russian estate is beautifully managed, setting up a governing convention across the show which collapses the distance between our contemporary world and this suspended one. It is a listless existence where days blur into each other. Nothing much happens, gentry loll about, tea is drunk, time is stuck. Complex, richly thematic and funnyTrue to the essence of Chekhov, Murray-Smith’s adaptation is complex, richly thematic and funny. The ensemble cast has been directed by Sarks with her usual care and specificity; the text is dynamic and there’s a terrific rhythm to the work. Evelyn Krape exudes grainy authenticity as pipe-wielding Nanny, exchanging witticisms with the idealist Doctor Astrov. Henshall’s Vanya is an existentialist Eeyore, arrogant and self-absorbed but infused with class-infected grief for his own life. He spits and seethes, ground down by the complex power relationship he must endure, the sacrifices he has made, and the mediocrity of circumstance this has engendered. The ensemble cast has been directed with care and specificity – but Micallef is less convincing as Serebryakov. Pia Johnson/MTC Sonya, played with youthful physicality by Northeast, is a perky, twitchy ingenue, stricken with love for Astrov and delightfully goofy in her awkward moments with him. Micallef is less convincing as Serebryakov, a character who is genuinely old, unwell and terrified of death, but here comes across more as a pompous buffoon. This casting doesn’t quite land the nuance and gravitas the role calls for. A striking visual designNonetheless, the play works on many levels, not least visually, where it is genuinely striking. Lighting design by Paul Jackson is subtle and moody. Barber’s costumes are rendered with a real attention to detail: leg-of-mutton sleeves narrowing to fitted button cuffs, blowsy nightgowns and enormous neck ribbons, all in muted sub-tones of tawny chestnut and indigo. Sound design and music composition by Grace Ferguson and Joe Paradise Lui draw from 1980s post-punk (Violent Femmes’ Add It Up is one edgy example) to sparse keys and sweeping audioscapes to signify scene or mood changes. Too often in shows there is too much sound; here, there is just enough, and the text is given the sonic space it deserves.Common humanityUltimately, the work returns us to the themes that make Chekhov endure. He knew we share a common humanity marked by sadness, grief, petty resentments, tension, frustration, love. Astrov’s conservationist voice rings through the work, made newly urgent by Murray-Smith’s adaptation, which draws his ecological systems-thinking into present-day concerns: the importance of nature, the scourge of climate change, and the question of what we leave behind. This production of Uncle Vanya doesn’t shy away from the story’s bleakness. Pia Johnson/MTC This production of Uncle Vanya doesn’t shy away from the story’s bleakness. At the end of the play, nothing has changed. But it leaves us asking: do we do anything to make a difference? How can we be useful? What habits and rituals help us – or mark us? As the play itself insists, everything we despair of is inevitable.Uncle Vanya is at Arts Centre Melbourne from Melbourne Theatre Company until August 22.Kate Hunter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.