It’s one of the great moments of Chekhovian or, come to that, modern theatre. You might almost say it marks the point at which tragi-comedy replaced both tragedy and comedy as the drama’s dominant genre.

Maddened by the selfish brother-in-law who wants to sell the estate that he’s spent his life tending, Uncle Vanya shoots, shoots again, and each time misses. He himself ends up wildly cursing his failure to commit murder and, in Peter Hall’s production, a terrified Professor Serebryakov is left staring at the floor on which he assumes his own corpse must be lying.

It’s awful, it’s hilarious, it’s both at once. Certainly the scene works wonderfully well in the revival that opens Kingston’s elegant reworking of an Elizabethan original.

A director friend remarked to me in the interval that the Rose’s stage was a bit wide, and maybe it’s not the place for something claustrophobic, such as Sartre’s No Exit or a Punch and Judy show.

But, boy, it looks and feels good, with its three-tiered arc of seats half-orbiting a stage that’s slightly thrust forward. And, yes, a spread-out mix of samovars, trees, old furniture and a crateful of damp hay are enough to prepare you for Chekhov’s rueful attack on Russian country life.

With Stephen Mulrine’s colloquial translation adding punch to last night’s premiere — Vanya calls the parasitical professor “a dry old stick, a sort of scholarly kipper” — Hall brings every character to life without leaving you in any doubt that their lives actually vary from the enervated to the dead.

I’ve never seen Nicholas Le Prevost better than as the title character himself. He avoids the usual wounded passivity and suggests a Vanya who is simmering and bubbling with resentment, boiling with thwarted desire for the elderly academic’s creamy young wife, Yelena — so that, when his rage bursts out, it does so quite logically yet also like a sudden flash flood in summer. “There’s something badly amiss in this house,” says Yelena, in Michelle Dockery’s well-balanced performance both an intelligent woman and a terminally bored sexpot. You can say that again. Le Prevost’s Vanya won’t stop kissing her hand and crowding her. Ronald Pickup as her husband crankily fidgets and moans beneath his blanket. Faith Brook as Vanya’s insensitive old mother pores fake-sagely over her books. Loo Brealey’s Sonya, who adores the local doctor, has bossy instincts, a pale, drawn face and an odd, scuttling walk that combine to explain why her love will never be reciprocated.

That doctor is Astrov, a character who gives the play a contemporary twist with his ecologically sound opinions and worthy attempts to fight Russia’s deforestation.

And as played by Neil Pearson, he has an enthusiasm, a toughness and a capacity for passion missing in those around him, yet also a slight sottishness (braces hanging down from a grubby vest) that suggests that provincial life and personal frustration have damaged him too. Altogether, this is a production well worthy not only of the Rose but of the national tour to follow.

Box office: 08712 301552. Until February 9

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010