A very traditional-looking production of Anton Chekov’s classic has some surprisingly modern undertones.

In another life, Anton Chekhov would have made a great psychic. His observations of turn-of-the-century Russian society and the class rage boiling quietly under the surface feel spookily prophetic, considering his plays were written just decades before the Bolshevik Revolution. They also feel relevant to 2014. That’s clear in The Pearl Theatre Company’s revival of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, which has the outward appearance of fin de siècle Russia…until the actors start talking and moving. Director Hal Brooks has created what looks like a very traditional production that is actually unabashedly (sometimes unnecessarily) modern. Vanya (Chris Mixon) is the over-the-hill manager of a Russian country estate. Alongside his niece, Sonya (Michelle Beck), he toils at his desk to scrape out a 2 percent annual return, which mostly goes to support the leisurely city lifestyle of his late sister’s husband (Sonya’s father), the retired academic Alexander Serebriakov (Dominic Cuskern). When Serebriakov settles for an extended stay at the estate, Vanya’s jealousy grows, especially in light of his infatuation with the professor’s second, much younger wife, Yelena (Rachel Botchan). Yelena has also caught the eye of Astrov (Bradford Cover), a frustrated country doctor with a passion for forestry. Meanwhile, Sonya is smitten by Astrov. Can such a complicated web of lust and resentment sustain itself on a poor country estate with a two-percent return? (No.)