Stupid Fucking Bird. One more time.

When asked about his play The Seagull, Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov described it as “a great deal of conversation about literature, little action, tons of love.” For Aaron Posner’s Stupid Fucking Bird–a “remix” of Seagull, which premiered at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company last season and is currently enjoying its second run–the list might be expanded: A great deal of conversation about theatre, little action, tons of love, a splash of audience participation, as well as “fog, gun shots, smoking, brief nudity, and copious use of the word fuck.”

Posner joins a prestigious and formidable list of playwrights who’ve tried their hand at adapting The Seagull–Tennessee Williams, Christopher Durang, and Tom Stoppard among them. And he holds his own among their ranks. Last season’s production received two of the most coveted Helen Hayes Awards–Outstanding Resident Play, and the Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play or Musical–and a handful of well-earned nominations.

Developed at Woolly Mammoth over the course of a year, the original production was such a smash that only the smallest things have been tweaked in the remount. The entire original cast–a veritable lineup of DC favorites and fresh new faces–returned to do this risky, honest, and brutally clever play once more, again under the direction of Woolly Mammoth’s artistic director, Howard Shalwitz.

It is a comedy. Let’s not overlook that fact, because it’s an important one. We can talk of Chekhov and his themes (and don’t worry, we’ll get there) and the show’s edgy innovation until dead seagulls drop from the sky, but the magic of Stupid Fucking Bird is how it balances the hilarious and the heartwrenching.

Conrad, played by Brad Koed, anchors the piece. He chats intermittently with the audience, kicking off the show by turning to us and saying, “The play will begin when someone says ‘Start the fucking play.’” (And so everyone in the audience says “Start the fucking play,” and it begins.) Immediately we see him both outwardly disdaining and seeking the approval of his mother Emma, an aging and self-absorbed actress (Kate Eastwood Norris) who’s recently shacked up with a sleek, successful, moderately douchey author (Cody Nickell). But he’s an artist and his art will win them over. Enter the wide-eyed Nina (Katie deBuys), his romantic interest. Together they perform a “site-specific performance event” for his family and friends–until his mother is so offended by this mockery of her profession that she shuts the whole thing down.

What unravels from there is a tapestry of emotions, personalities, and stylistic complexities deftly navigated by the cast.

As Sorn, Emma’s discontent and aging brother, Rick Foucheux embodies much of the play’s emotional heart, openly confronting his regrets and desires while recognizing there’s nothing to be done with them. (“I want to be 27 again,” he says. “I think I could do my late 20s really well now”). Conrad’s mopey, loafy friend Dev, played endearingly by Darius Pierce, provides a source of both resignation and hope. And Kimberly Gilbert’s performance as Mash is what you might imagine of a comic Eeyore with a ukulele, marinated overlong in the pain of unrequited love. (This is a good thing.)

Those familiar with Chekhov’s play will be able to anticipate plot points and actions, and indeed may recognize bits of language preserved in Posner’s adaptation. As before, one of the most innately brilliant things about Stupid Fucking Bird is that it hasn’t updated Chekhov exactly–it’s instead used him as a springboard, diving from The Seagull and its themes into a modern-day meditation on love, on theatre, on impulse and desire and loneliness and humanity. On what can and can’t be compromised.

It is acutely self-aware of its status as a play, and takes full advantage of every opportunity to reference itself. (Including a scathing indictment of the state of theatre today, flaming the “tiny, tepid, clever-y little plays that are being produced by terrified theaters just trying to keep ancient Jews and gay men and retired academics and a few random others who did plays in high school trickling in their doors.”) At another point, when the audience is especially prone to misbehavior, Conrad stares us down and says, “Yes, I know I’m in a play. I’m right here and you’re right there, and since you can see and hear me, let’s just assume I can see and hear you.”

And indeed as a play, it occupies one of its own central themes: the tug-of-war between compromise and revolution. As adaptation, it is by nature a compromise between two writers. As an inventive take on contemporary theatre, it is revelatory. It has somehow managed to straddle form and function in a way that doesn’t call attention to itself, but is there for those who look.

Let us hope this sets the bar for new work created and produced in DC. Sure, that may be a lofty goal. But a few more productions like this, and it’s only a matter of time before our city is known around the world as a hotbed of edgy and astonishing new plays.

In short, this fucking Bird is decidedly a smart one, and one extraordinarily worth seeing.

Stupid Fucking Bird by Aaron Posner . Directed by Howard Shalwitz . Featuring Rick Foucheux, Kimberly Gilbert, Kate Eastwood Norris, Katie DeBuys, Brad Koed, Cody Nickell and Darius Pierce. Set design: Misha Kachman . Costume design: Laree Lentz . Lighting design: Colin K. Bills . Sound design and original music: James Sugg .Dramaturg: Miriam Weisfeld . Production stage manager: Kristy Matero . Produced by Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company . Reviewed by Jennifer Clements.