Sometimes a great cast and a great director coalesce around a particular play and make it sing in ways it only rarely can, and such is the case with the current production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya playing at Berkeley Rep.

Uncle Vanya is, it should be said, a great play to begin with, and maybe the most perfect of Chekhov's brief oeuvre — he died at age 44, having produced just five full-length plays, a dozen one-acts, and many short stories. He was also a full-time physician, referring to medicine as his "wife" and literature as his "mistress," and arguably a version of himself makes it into this play in the form of the country doctor, Mikhail, who is passionate about ecology and the effects of deforestation.

The production now at Berkeley Rep, though, is astonishing in many ways, and transcends even the greatness of the script. It is directed by Simon Godwin, artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC — where this production will transfer in late March. It stars Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey) in the role of Vanya, Melanie Field as his neice Sofya, Ito Aghayere as his sister-in-law Yelena, and veteran character actor John Benjamin Hickey (The Good Fight) in the role of Mikhail Astrov, the doctor.

It is a production where none of Chekhov's words are glossed over, and none of the play's minor characters are ignored — Nancy Robinette turns out a particularly compelling performance as housemaid Marina/Nana, and Bay Area actor Sharon Lockwood is excellent as Vanya's mother Mariya.

(I should note this is not the same production that was on Broadway last season, directed by Lila Neugebauer, and starring Steve Carrell.)

Also, no single performance outshines another, and what you have on stage is a four-act play, told in a modern way — and in a new adaptation by playwright Conor McPherson (The Weir, Girl From the North Country) — that strikes at the essence of Chekhov's many themes, and takes the audience on a devastating yet life-affirming emotional ride. It is a play about aging and dissatisfaction, sacrifice, and the search for meaning in one's life. It's also a play about the cruelness of modernity, how money and the lack of it infects families, and about the double-edged nature of love, its solaces and sadnesses.

In other productions I've seen, Vanya is characterized as more pathetic, a middle-aged, educated man who's amounted to little, stuck managing the family farm and supporting a brother-in-law who is a minorly renowned scholar. (Tom Nelis, in the role of the professor Aleksandr, is excellently pompous in the role.) But here, Bonneville shines as an affable, willful, wholly likable character who has simply been handed a bum deal, and who has mostly had the stamina and good humor to cope with that.

As Sofya, Field is magnificent, serving as the quiet, stalwart, emotional heart of Chekhov's play, and her chemistry on stage with all the other actors feels genuine. In the role of Yelena, Aghayere smolders with the sadness of a woman blessed with beauty and trapped by comfort. And Hickey is equally outstanding in the doctor role, which looms larger in this production that it has in others I've seen. He is a great foil for Bonneville's Vanya, both of them staring down their later years, enjoying each others' company over a drink.

The simple set design by Robert Brill allows each act of the play to shift visual perspective just slightly, while still evoking the 19th Century farmhouse in which the play is set.

The alchemy of Godwin's direction, McPherson's adaptation, and this well rehearsed, very in-sync cast is more than palpable. The play hits you in both whispers and waves, its intricate basketweave of emotions constantly revealing a little bit more until the audience left breathless, and in awe. I can't recommend it enough.

'Uncle Vanya' plays through March 23. Find tickets here.

Top image: Melanie Field as Sofya and Hugh Bonneville as Vanya with Craig Wallace, rear, as Waffles. Photo by Kevin Berne