What’s a Century Between Family?

It’s an eerie sensation, listening as characters in the century-old “Uncle Vanya” ask what people will think about them and their problems 100 years hence.

And the answer? Today’s audiences can marvel at the familiarity of their heartbreak, their money worries, their concern about destruction of the environment.

Either Chekhov was ahead of his time, as some like to say, or we haven’t changed much in the hundred years since--which is far more likely.

The San Diego Repertory Theatre’s lucid and lovely presentation of Chekhov’s classic achieves this up-to-date feel without resorting to modern, technological gimmicks. No cell phones and laptops in this woodsy, rural set, where the crickets chirp and the samovar takes center stage. All to the good.

David Mamet, who wrote this adaptation, has an uncanny ear for real speech that helps considerably. The staging by company associate artistic director Todd Salovey is both psychologically and spiritually grounded.

This is a Vanya in which each character has a heart that you can almost hear beating with anticipation--or breaking.

Mike Genovese is electric as Vanya, a man on the most intimate terms with disappointment. He gives an earthy, somewhat coarse spin to the man who realizes, at 47, that he has sacrificed his life for his sister, now dead, for whom he gave up his share of an inheritance, and for her husband, a scholar, for whom he now has utter contempt.

It’s a performance that’s full of life, rather than faded (as it’s so often played), with an intensity that shows him fighting furiously for his last chance of happiness--the love of the 27-year-old beauty, Yelena (Sabrina LeBeauf), that his brother-in-law has married. He courts her with the desperation of a man grabbing for his lost youth.

Under Salovey’s direction, every word, every phrase has resonance, each character has a valid point of view that proves catastrophic nonetheless when colliding with the views of others.

Carla Harting’s performance as Sonya, Vanya’s niece by his dead sister, is every bit as wrenching as Genovese’s. Like his sad kindred spirit, she works for others and deprives herself. When, finally, she tremblingly dares to ask for a love and a life of her own, one can almost hear the dull thud of despair that awaits her in the distance.

Douglas Roberts plays Astrov, the environmentalist doctor, whose own last grasp at happiness has the strength of a flickering candle in a gathering storm. LeBeauf suggests the deep unhappiness of the indolent Yelena, a languid beauty determined to be well thought of, even as she realizes she has married badly.

*

Jonathan McMurtry is all pomp and insecurity as Serebryakov, the lauded but limited professor who expects and gets everyone to do his bidding.

Giulio Cesare Perrone’s wood-planked set (handsomely lit by Jeff Rowlings), slopes up to church-like spires, suggesting not only the rustic but also the religious life that centers Chekhov’s unhappy characters. The mournful and vigorous violin solos composed by Joseph Julian Gonzalez and performed live by Myla K. Wingard (alternating with Elana Fremerman) accentuate the mood with exquisite delicacy.

It’s a luminous and supple “Uncle Vanya” in which every word, every glance, every movement matters. And yes, people probably will be saying the same things about another production of “Uncle Vanya” 100 years from now.

* “Uncle Vanya,” San Diego Repertory Theatre Lyceum Space, 79 Horton Plaza, San Diego. Today-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Sunday. $20-$28. (619) 544-1000. Running time: 2 hours, 28 minutes.

Joan Schirle: Marina

Douglas Roberts: Mikhail Lvovich Astrov

Mike Genovese: Ivan Petrovich Voynitzky (Uncle Vanya)

Jonathan McMurtry: Alexandr Vladimirovich Serebryakov

Sabrina LeBeauf: Yelena Andreyevna Carla Harting: Sofya Alexandrovna (Sonya)

Ramon “Chunky” Sanchez: Ilya Ilyich Telegin (Waffles)

Katherine Faulconer: Mariya Vasiliyevna Voynitzkaya

Douglas Gabrielle: Workman

A San Diego Repertory Theatre production of a play by Anton Chekhov, adapted by David Mamet. Director is Todd Salovey. Sets: Giulio Cesare Perrone. Lights: Jeff Rowlings. Costumes: Brandin Baron. Composer/sound designer: Joseph Julian Gonzalez. Dramaturg: Nakissa Etemad. Stage manager: Diana J. Moser.