Theatre in Review: Uncle Vanya (Pearl Theatre Company)Pearl Theatre Company opens its new season with a production that demonstrates both the pleasures and limitations of repertory. The Pearl is one of the very few companies in New York that relies on a select troupe of actors; for regular attendees, this approach breeds a kind of familiarity that can enrich each new production. Sometimes, however, repertory casting creates its own challenges, requiring that actors take on roles for which they are not ideally suited. The Pearl's Uncle Vanya is a generally satisfying revival of a play that has been very much with us in recent years, but there are moments when one must adjust one's expectations to the realities of the casting. The best thing about Hal Brooks' production is that it gets at the underlying tensions of a large extended family whose members, congregating under the roof of a country house, are quietly driving each other mad. He is aided by Paul Schmidt's tart, lean translation, which strikes a funny-rueful note that feels contemporary without ever being anachronistic. The family's beloved elderly nurse, never one to mince words, informs the frustrated, middle-aged Vanya, "You used to be young and good-looking and now you're not." Vanya, fed up with his pretentious, bluestocking mother, says, "She has one foot in the grave and the other on a stack of feminist pamphlets." Of his brother-in-law, the elderly, intellectual Serebriakov, he says, "We can't all be perpetual writing machines." Vanya, who shows signs of clinical depression, spends much of his time trying to get a rise out of the others. "The weather's lovely today," someone says. "Lovely weather for hanging yourself," he replies, by way of making conversation. Chris Mixon's Vanya is one of the production's unalloyed successes, a plain, unloved workhorse who might once have displayed intellectual promise but who has wasted his life laboring to squeeze every last ruble out of the family's estate to keep Serebriakov living in comfort in the city. (Serebriakov had been married to Vanya's beloved, now-dead sister.) Vanya has faded to the point where he is barely noticed by the others; if anyone actually listened to him, they would be horrified. His longing for Yelena, Serebriakov's young wife, is, of course, hopeless. "You're just the comic relief around here," says Vanya's drinking companion, Astrov, in a moment of brutal candor. Bradford Cover is equally fine as Astrov, the bored, alcoholic doctor whose soul has gradually shriveled up from a life of medical drudgery. Cover has a special knack for characters whose patience is running out, which makes him a good choice for Astrov, who is genuinely appalled at the filth and ignorance of the country folk with whom he lives and the perpetual demands they make on him. "A boring life can never be an honest one," he says, bitterly, and in his spiritual ruin we surely see what he means. As Vanya's mother, Carol Schultz conveys an august presence -- she is forever bent over a pamphlet, her face creased in concentration -- that belies her empty-headed embrace of all conventional opinions. She is especially amusing when expressing her distaste for a writer who has had the temerity to turn against the opinions he held seven years earlier, suggesting that such intellectual instability is sending the world to hell in a handbasket. Robin Leslie Brown is pretty much ideal as Marina, the elderly nurse, clucking over the foolishness she sees all around her. Less successful, however, are two performances by other familiar faces at the Pearl. As Yelena, who, despite her passive nature and spiritual emptiness, has a destabilizing effect on the men around her, Rachel Botchan is attractive -- especially in Barbara A. Bell's gorgeous dresses -- and she has a sly way of signaling the character's lack of substance. (She reacts to Astrov's passionate speech about the deforestation of the area with almost perfect incomprehension.) But she's not the magnificently indolent and sensual-seeming creature who, someone notes, has cast a spell on the entire household, disrupting its routines and causing emotional outbursts. Dominic Cuskern captures Serebriakov's intellectual preening and fatuous self-importance -- especially when he assembles the family to float his selfish scheme to sell the estate, which he trumpets as a plan for the common good -- but he seems too youthful and vigorous to be an ailing, elderly specimen, kept up at night by gout pains and breathing trouble. Another bit of casting, from outside the company, is also problematic: As Serebriakov's daughter, the sad, spinsterish Sonya, who loves Astrov hopelessly, Michelle Beck seems too young and pretty. Beck plays with considerable intelligence, making it clear that Sonya suffers from a crippling lack of self-confidence, but it's hard to understand why everyone else considers her to be such a plain Jane. Send her off to Moscow with a couple of lovely gowns and chances are she'd make a splendid marriage in no time at all. Nevertheless, Brooks' staging meticulously tracks the crosscurrents among Chekhov's troubled summer folk. The first act, depicting a late-afternoon tea on the terrace, especially strikes the right note of heat-induced irritation. Someone complains that the tea is cold; Yelena announces that cold tea is fine -- and the tense pause that follows tells you a great deal about life in this emotionally stifling household. Brooks also provocatively stages the scene in which Sonya confronts Astrov about his drinking with the two of them standing face-to-face, seemingly teetering on the edge of a kiss that never happens. The scene in which Yelena, trying to plead Sonya's case, ends up in a clinch with Astrov, only to be discovered by Vanya, is a properly mortifying, a fine mix of heartbreak and farce. And when Vanya, fed up with Serebriakov's estate-sale plan, which will leave him and Sonya homeless, uncorks decades' worth of suppressed fury, denouncing the older man as "a stupid, sadistic no-talent," you can understand why his rage sends everyone else running for cover. Also, Uncle Vanya has always seemed the most modern of Chekhov's works because of its sub-theme of environmental degradation. "The climate is changing for the worse," says Astrov, and, even if it is lost on Yelena, his speech about the creeping destruction of Russian forests cannot fail to speak to 21st-century audiences, as does the juxtaposition of this terrible problem with the characters' foolish self-obsessions. It's telling that Jason Simms' set design is dominated by a green landscape dominated by a single tree; he also uses a set of diaphanous white curtains, a handful of furniture pieces, and two sets of pillars to create a variety of interior looks. Seth Reiser's lighting and M. Florian Staab's sound are both solid. We've had plenty of Uncle Vanyas in the last several years, most of them teeming with stars, including the likes of Cate Blanchett, Simon Russell Beale, Emily Watson, Peter Sarsgaard, Michael Shannon, and Maggie Gyllenhaal -- not to mention adaptors like Brian Friel and Annie Baker. The Pearl revival may lack star fireworks, but it offers a company of actors who are thoroughly attuned to each other and an especially mordant translation. These are fairly considerable resources, and, even with its occasionally problematic casting, Chekhov's vision -- which strangely manages to be both pitiless and profoundly forgiving -- still shines through.--David Barbour 
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