‘The Seagull’ — never better

No one does disappointment, aimlessness, ludicrous despair and heartwrenching sorrow like Chekhov. And hardly anyone does Chekhov convincingly on stage, making us recognize ourselves in those impossible tragicomic characters. This magnificent production of

The Seagull

, transferred from London to Broadway, gets it absolutely and thrillingly right.

Early in Act One, young actress to young playwright: "But there's not much action, is there? It's just a lot of speeches. And I think you always have to have love in a play . . .." Chekhov's actress has just about defined Chekhovian drama. Both the long speeches and the long silences of The Seagull are delivered to perfection, and there is love, so much love, so unrequited.

The plot (if that word is not an overstatement) concerns a famous actress, Arkadina, played by the elegant, splendid Kristin Scott Thomas, and her young lover, the famous writer Trigorin (Peter Sarsgaard). Trigorin's attention turns to Nina (the luminous Carey Mulligan), whom Konstantin (Mackenzie Crook) adores hopelessly. But Masha (Zoe Kazan doing a wonderful goth-before-the-fact neurotic turn) adores Konstantin, and the impoverished schoolteacher Medvedenko (Pearce Quigley) worships Masha.

There are subterranean dramas running through every crevice in the household, all seen and overseen by the physician Dorn (Art Malik, who can convey both intensity and sanity simultaneously). Patting the weeping Masha, he comments over her shoulder, "How neurotic everyone is! So neurotic! And all this love . . .."

The ensemble acting magically includes us - we feel that we're in the house, part of the family - holding the audience hushed, except for laughter, and rapt for nearly three hours. Director Ian Rickson takes daring chance after chance, distracting us (perfect realism, life itself) from the big speeches by having other characters walk across the stage to light a lamp, fetch something, leave the room.

Even the porter (Christopher Patrick Nolan), who barely speaks a line, contributes to the scene with a face of outrage or distress. Ann Dowd as the wife of the estate's manager, inexplicably but perfectly shreds a bunch of flowers. Not a moment - in a production filled with long silences and seemingly pointless dialogue - is wasted.

Rickson has Kristin Scott Thomas (how brave for a middle-aged actress to play a middle-aged actress desperately pretending to be younger than she is) and Carey Mulligan (astonishingly beautiful, her face shining with tears, dimpled and so young) use the same gestures from the same position on stage. Each woman, throughout the play, leans forward from the waist, with outstretched arm, yearning, reaching hand. The whole play is contained in those empty hands.

As Trigorin, Sarsgaard (the only American replacement in the Royal Court production) speaks in measured, unemotional rhythms, boring himself by talking about his boredom, a poseur who seems authentic. This disaffected delivery is matched by Crook's as Konstantin. Both men are, like everyone else in the play, annoying. But they know they're annoying, and they annoy themselves, so we sympathize while we're annoyed, since their self-awareness is, as always in Chekhov - as always in life as we live it - partially redemptive.

So much laughing and weeping and kissing and hugging and talking and waiting and coming and going. So much theatrical pleasure.