Dramatizing the pathos of Chekhov is the easy part; finding the comedy is the challenge. Any precise translation stands a strong chance of falling flat, so retaining the characters and dilemmas while rewriting and trimming the dialogue to make it as punchy as today’s television writing is increasingly the norm. Heidi Schreck, a television writer (Billions) who earned a place on the Pulitzer and Tony shortlists for her 2019 autobiographical monologue, What the Constitution Means to Me, has jollied up 1897’s Uncle Vanya (at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center through June 16) by reconceiving the titular grumpy groaner as a caustically funny observer of the people around him, and of himself. She and Steve Carell, in the title role, have made something lively and amusing out of material that can come across as dour. At least that’s how it goes in the first half; the second half, as usual in Dr. C’s plays, is knotted with anguish and regret.

It’s no secret that Carell, who excels in the role, can do drama. As far back as 2006, in Little Miss Sunshine, he played a suicidal gay Proust scholar in a part that would have made Chekhov tip his hat, and he was outstanding two years ago in the television miniseries The Patient, in which he played a psychiatrist seeking at length to talk his serial-killer captor out of murdering him. Yet Carell has brought his comic talents to the fore