Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Admirable a play as Chekhov's ``The Seagull'' is, three mountings in one year may be a bit of a surfeit, even if the latest revival, starring Kristin Scott Thomas, was a big hit in London. Several members of the British cast repeat here, with a few Americans seamlessly blending in vocally.

Of immediate interest in addition to Scott Thomas's more- than-credible Broadway debut is the adaptation by Christopher Hampton, distinguished playwright and screenwriter. Chekhov needs no adapting, so changes are minimal; certainly Chekhov's language, via Hampton, falls lightly on our ears. But there remain peculiarities.

This is the story of the famous but fading actress Arkadina, tightfisted with her son Konstantin, struggling avant- garde writer. He has written a play starring Nina, aspiring actress and overprotected daughter of rich landowners. They are neighbors of Sorin, retired civil servant and Arkadina's brother, at whose country estate the grande dame and her entourage are summering. This includes middle-aged Trigorin, highly successful novelist and Arkadina's lover, at whom the adoring Nina throws herself, thereby eliciting intense jealousy from Konstantin, unrequitedly in love with her.

Much happens during this summer, involving also the worldly-wise Doctor Dorn, and Masha, the theater-loving estate overseer's daughter, frustratedly in love with Konstantin. Sorin, too, is tormented with an unfulfilled life and worsening health. Masha lovelessly marries the devoted but impoverished teacher Medvedenko, while Nina runs off to Moscow to devote herself to Trigorin and the stage.

Mad Scene

The last act, two years later, finds everyone back chez Sorin. Trigorin, bored with Nina, now a minor actress, has gone back to Arkadina. Semidemented, Nina identifies with a seagull Konstantin shot back when and still evades the now successful young writer's advances. Tragedy ensues, although the play is largely comical in tone.

To this production, Hildegard Bechtler provides some odd scenery. In Act 1, we get neither the neat garden nor the small makeshift stage on which Nina monologizes in Konstantin's surreal play. The background is a strange black wall on which, in Act 2, windows are bizarrely hung, but neither the called-for croquet lawn nor lake shore is in evidence.

In Act 3, Sorin's living room is miserably furnished and the wallpaper is crumbling; Act 4 denies us Konstantin's book- lined study. All this misses the well-cushioned but stifling bourgeois monotony that Chekhov is after.

The acting is mostly good, though the casting and direction are questionable. The women are either exaggerated or misrepresented: The always fascinating Scott Thomas is prodded into an Arkadina even more actressy than the text already calls for; Zoe Kazan's Masha is more histrionic than written. Carey Mulligan's basically good Nina doesn't quite convey her mad self-projection into the shot seagull.

Among the men, Mackenzie Crook, as the lovable Konstantin, looks like a cross between a wastrel and a ghoul, and neither Peter Sarsgaard's Trigorin nor Art Malik's Dorn, though otherwise fine, suggests these characters' envied strong appeal to women.

Director Ian Rickson's pacing, alternating between hyperactivity (a lot of bustle) and inertia (inordinate pauses) detracts from the prescribed conventionality. I'm not sure how many swallows it takes to make a summer, but I'm certain that one ``Seagull'' really well done would have been quite sufficient to establish Chekhov's genius and satisfy our hunger for nourishing theater.

Through Dec. 21 at the Walter Kerr Theater, 219 W. 48th St., Manhattan. Information: +1-212-239-6200; http://www.seagulltheplay.com.

(John Simon is the New York drama critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: John Simon in New York at jis1925@aol.com.

Last Updated: October 2, 2008 23:30 EDT