Neil LaBute’s surprisingly faithful adaptation of Chekhov’s 1899 play nevertheless feels forged in the present day – even in this very moment: The proceedings remind me of a Thanksgiving dinner, with years of regrets and seething resentments suddenly bursting out into confrontations; also of a Christmas office party, with misplaced, awkward declarations of love.
There is even a character whom we would now call an environmentalist who laments the destruction of the surrounding forest on the rural estate where the play takes place.
But this production by Broadway’s Best Shows (available online only through November 23) is most of the moment because it’s a Zoom play. Yes it has a starry cast: The nine performers include Alan Cumming in the title role, Samira Wiley as his niece, and Ellen Burstyn as his mother; even the reader of the stage directions is a Tony winner, Gabriel Ebert. But this “Uncle Vanya,” with a running time of 140 minutes over four acts, doesn’t always escape the downsides of the new platform, especially Zoom fatigue.
It might not help that listlessness is among the central traits of many of the characters in the play, exacerbated by the arrival of Serebryakov (K. Todd Freeman) and his young, beautiful second wife Yelena (Constance Wu)
Vanya feels he has wasted his life by living and working on the estate in order to support Serebryakov, his brother-in-law, who was the husband of his late sister. Serebryakov is a retired professor who lives in the city with Yelena, a woman whose idleness, we’re told, is infectious. Vanya once admired the professor, but now envies and resents him—because he covets the man’s wife.
Yelena is aware of the tensions in the household. “Vanya, you are an educated man, intelligent, you know what I’m saying. This is how the world ends. Not with fire and murder . It’ll all be just this, petty squabbles and hatred…There needs to be peace in this house, not all this complaining.”
“Then make peace with me, my dearest,” Vanya replies – an attempt at seduction, not the only one in the play, and not just by Vanya. But, isolated in their separate Zoom boxes, with only the stage directions describing any action, there are long stretches that feel….well, petty.
Director Danya Taymor did a much better job at making the platform work in the play’s favor in her Zoom version of  Heroes of the Fourth Turning. In that production, for example, all the backgrounds matched up. Here, the actors perform in front of a variety of rooms, none of which look like part of a 19th century rural estate.
Those viewers with enough patience, however, will be rewarded by some fiery scenes. Cumming is terrific when his Vanya confronts the professor over his announcement he plans to sell the estate. Wiley is often wonderful as Vanya’s niece – she’s all smiles when she hints to the country doctor Astrov (Anson Mount) that she’s long been in love with him; she’s all frowns when she urges her uncle to give the doctor back the morphine he stole.
Not everything about this Uncle Vanya feels contemporary. There is, for example, Yelena’s comment about how the world ends. Based on what’s been unfolding lately, it’s more likely to be petty squabbles, hatred AND fire and murder.

Uncle Vanya
By Anton Chekhov
Broadway’s best Shows
through November 23
$5 +, to benefit the Actors Fund
Adapted by Neil Labute
Directed by Danya Taymor
Cast: Alan Cumming as “Uncle Vanya,” Ellen Burstyn as “Maria,” Manik Choksi as “Waffles,” K. Todd Freeman as “Serebryakov,” Mia Katigbak as “Marina,” Anson Mount as “Astrov,” Samira Wiley as “Sonya,”  Constance Wu as “Yelena.” Srebryakov’s wife and every other man’s object of affection. T Gabriel Ebert is the Narrator.