IT would be tempting to call the Gate's Uncle Vanya a travesty, but that would lend it too much credence. 'Travesty' suggests some kind of failed endeavour. There is no endeavour in this revival.

The Gate has rolled out an old script, thrown a seasoned director and cast at it, and sat back while the punters roll in. The impression is of a tired touring company giving a stock play in their repertoire: tonight, they play Vanya; tomorrow, the same actors may play the same characters . . . their stock characters . . . in an entirely different production.

Owen Roe is the exception: his muttering, distressed, wryly comic Vanya is a beguiling character study, but one from a very different production . . . a contemporary one, perhaps. The production in which he finds himself is mannered where his performance is naturalistic, staid where he is restless. Anthony Calf does well as the doctor, Astrov, his strong, formal, portrayal acting as something of a bridge between Roe's Vanya and the rest of the cast. Cathy Belton's compelling performance as Sonya can't overcome her miscasting: the character's entire persona is founded on the neglect she has suffered largely as a result of being plain. No matter how good Belton is, she can't act plain.

The production is distinguished by its absences: there is none of the ennui; none of the sexual tension; none of the sense of time, and seasons, passing; none of the suggestion of a broader context, of an epoch ending, of this estate as paradigmatic for a society. Without that, Vanya is a meandering comedy of manners. It is two hours of tedious theatre.

Marina Carr's new play is rich in endeavour . . . although it would be patronising to leave the praise at that. This is a bold piece of writing, directed with verve by Selina Cartmell and performed with great poise and rigour. Yet it is an incomplete production, and the fault, it appears, lies with Cartmell's decisions in interpreting Carr's text.

Woman and Scarecrow is a play about death. It documents the final hours in a woman's life (Olwen Fouere), full of regret and recrimination.

These emotions are personified in the form of her alter-ego, Scarecrow (Barbara Brennan), who lurks at her shoulder, helping to fend off death and goading her into taking advantage of her approaching demise to tell her wayward husband what she really thinks of him. Meanwhile, the husband (Simon O'Gorman) is trying to keep their eight children in check, and keep the wife's family, who have gathered for the death, in food and liquor.

That description can't possibly do it justice. Carr's writing is savage: it is mordant, acerbic and deeply human. This is a significant play about human frailty and the rituals of death, perhaps the most interesting new Irish play of the past few years. But for much of this production, the quality of the writing shines through despite Cartmell's staging.

Cartmell has turned the play into a showcase in Gothic fantasy.

The set and costumes look like something out of winter in Narnia, and the tone of the performances is relentlessly declamatory. Carr's script is bitterly funny, but lines that should raise a wry laugh are greeted with reverential silence by the audience because the actors are allowed neither the nuance nor the time to exploit them.

For much of it, Fouere and Brennan look and sound great, but are fundamentally uninteresting . . .

against them, Simon O'Gorman's performance is all the more compelling for being understated. But a tremendous final scene rescues the production.

Carr pares back her prose, Fouere and Brennan pare back their performances, and Cartmell imposes a striking directorial vision that enhances the play.

It will take another production to see just how good Carr's play really is. In the meantime, at least, this is theatre of consequence.

Vanya reminds us not to take that for granted.