It's been 20 long years since Meryl Streep last appeared in a play in New York. And from the evidence now available at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, she has been depriving herself and her audiences of some serious pleasure.
Ms. Streep is playing Arkadina, an aging actress of considerable charm and even greater vanity, in Mike Nichols's very starry and very spotty production of Chekhov's ''Seagull,'' which was scheduled to open last night. And when Arkadina makes her entrance, as a stage diva should, swanning down a staircase, don't be surprised if a welcoming serenade starts up in your head, like the one sung by those dancing waiters to the star of ''Hello, Dolly!''
For it is indeed nice to have this Oscar-winning actress back where she belongs. Two decades in front of movie cameras haven't diminished her capacity for looming large from a stage, and with a head-to-toe physicality that gives the lie to Pauline Kael's famous suggestion that Ms. Streep acts only from the neck up.
Known largely as Hollywood's tear-streaked queen of broken hearts, Ms. Streep is here often luxuriantly, self-mockingly funny. Yet you see the anxiety behind Arkadina's grand, silly postures; like Chekhov himself, Ms. Streep has drawn a portrait of comic ruthlessness and gentle understanding.
In other words, theatergoers who continue to wait hopefully to obtain the limited number of free tickets left for ''The Seagull,'' which has been extended through Aug. 26, are not doing so in vain. But be warned that while this production may offer, as the old MGM slogan boasted, ''more stars than there are in heaven,'' only two of those stars, Ms. Streep and Kevin Kline, shed much in the way of illuminating light.
Few playwrights demand greater instinctive harmony within an ensemble than Chekhov does. Granted, his characters are often so hermetically self-involved that they don't even listen to one another. But it is essential that we believe they all breathe the same befogged air.
Yet throughout this latest ''Seagull'' I kept feeling that I had to readjust frequencies to receive all the different stylistic signals. Mr. Nichols, a much and justly awarded director of films and plays, here appears to have encouraged his cast members to retreat to separate corners to find their characters and then come out acting.