La Jolla Playhouse’s latest offering, Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, is nothing less than a gift to the community of San Diego.

Adapted and brilliantly directed by Emily Mann, the story focuses upon the lives of a small group of people in the provinces. Although written around 1860, the play is very much alive today; the issues include loss, love, ambition, ideals and illusions. It is a tragicomedy that tells the tale of a retired professor who returns to the family estate to live with his young second wife, Yelena. The professor’s return causes disharmony within the once tranquil 24-room country estate. Housed within the family compound are the professor’s daughter (the same age as his new wife), a nanny, the brother of his first wife, an impoverished landowner, and the mother of his first wife.

A subtle, classical, musical introduction immediately pulls the audience into a different time and place, where the family talks of the recent changes within their domicile. Once pulled in, the audience is kept happily captive for the almost three-hour production. It was as if the director were using a metronome, counting out the beats and rhythms of the dialog, so precise was the execution by her dynamic and capable ensemble of actors.

Mikhail Astrov (Michael Siberry, who was excellent) announces that his heart doesn’t work anymore, that he has lost the capacity for love and loving. He speaks to so many who have failed in their efforts to find a life-long companion through the years, and believes he has reached the point in his life where he realizes that these dreams of fulfillment will never materialize.

The house is now filled with people who do nothing but eat, sleep, and drink. The missing ingredient that had kept them sane was work. But now, few if any in the household are able to work because of the distracting presence of Yelena (Natasha Roi), the professor’s wife. Both Mikhail and Vanya (Steven Skybell) are enamored with Yelena, not able to comprehend why such a young flower could waste her life with the sickly, dried-up, old, retired professor, Alexander (William Biff McGuire).

Alexander, angry in his retirement, laments the fact that he must now endure the boredom of the country. He misses the stimulating conversation with peers, where he was able to talk of art and other such elevated matters. On the other hand, Vanya alludes to the fact that Alexander (addressed as “Your Excellency”) had written about art for 25 years, but knows nothing of art and was simply “beating the air” for those same 25 years. He has lived a lie and is a fraud.

The character of Mikhail seemed to shine a bit brighter than the other cast members, including the talented Amanda Plummer. His timing and phrasing was near perfect; the balance of physicality and narration was on target throughout the production.

Plummer was capable in her role as Sonya, Alexander’s daughter, but seemed to be still defining her character. She had moments of brilliance and electrified the audience with her subdued pain.

Skybell’s Vanya character carries with him a universal tragic component that speaks to unfulfilled lives and sacrifice that add up to nothing. Brutally sad, his character seemed to lack the intestinal fortitude to move from the shadows of life into the light of individual productivity.

There was a certain poetry that eclipsed the message of life’s futility in this production of Uncle Vanya. And it is understood far better by individuals of a certain vintage, for that is the time when we begin to take stock of our lives and evaluate our individual progress. Checkhov’s drama is bleak and its characters resemble a herd of soon-to-be-sacrificed cows with a ready knowledge of their impending slaughter. It is an overwhelmingly morose message, that our lives have little meaning and work or “busyness” is the only thing that will get us to the inevitable end. With that said, I encourage everyone to feast from the many morsels of theatrical brilliance this play offers to its audience. Go!

Uncle Vanya runs through Sunday, June 29. For additional information, call The La Jolla Playhouse at (858) 550-0100.