In My Childhood, the first volume of his autobiographical trilogy, Maxim Gorky recounts the poverty and brutality that he experienced growing up in Russia in the second half of the 19th century. Even during sunnier episodes, when the focus isn’t on the fear he felt or the hardships he endured, he frequently conveys an encroaching shadow or a chill in the air. At one point he informs us that ‘The evening was still and mild, one of those brooding, late summer evenings when, in the midst of the still abundant flowering, there are forewarnings of dissolution.’

Ten years before, in 1904, Gorky wrote a play that was set during summer, and infused with, and propelled by, ‘forewarnings of dissolution’. Summerfolk was Gorky’s third play and by the time it appeared he had already made a name for himself as both a singular literary talent and a vocal opponent of the Tsarist regime. The latter stance had brought repercussions: he had been arrested several times and imprisoned twice for hobnobbing with known revolutionaries, disseminating subversive ideas and taking part in student demonstrations; and he had been exiled to remote Arzamas, 250 miles east of Moscow. As a repeat offender in the eyes of the state who championed the plight of the poor and oppressed, he was kept under constant police surveillance and his work was censored or banned from theatres. Instead of backing down and toeing the line, Gorky nailed his political colours more firmly to the mast by providing financial support to Lenin’s Social Democratic Party.

This was where Gorky was, ideologically, when he wrote Summerfolk. The idea for the play was inspired by his summer of 1902. He stayed in a dacha with his wife and was angry about the mess the holidaymakers from the previous year had left. ‘The summer visitor is the most useless and perhaps the most harmful individual on earth; he descends on a dacha, fouls it up with rubbish and then leaves,’ he remarked.

The summer visitor that drew Gorky’s ire was a new kind of beast. Those now escaping the cities to lounge around for months on country estates were businessmen, professionals and intellectuals. Gorky set out to skewer them. His colony of bourgeois characters – doctors, lawyers, engineers, industrialists, writers – are thoroughly cocooned from quotidian struggles and social unrest. They enjoy long, languid days in the sun. But soon rising temperatures and harsh truths lead to fractious moods and exposed differences. When those forewarnings of dissolution materialise, it becomes clear that it isn’t just relationships that will crumble but the old political and monarchical order.

Robert Hastie’s new production of Summerfolk at London’s Olivier Theatre conveys brilliantly a relative calm before an almighty storm. Right from the outset we are made aware that this will be no modern revamp. There is precise period detail in everything before us, from the immaculate costumes of the characters – white linen suits for the men, long dresses for the women – to the tasteful furnishings of the summer villa. There are masters and servants, candles and old briefcases, and talk of recent books doing more harm than wine. But what looks set to be a prim and starchy comedy of manners soon turns into an acerbic and humorous examination of power, entitlement and denial.

The first scene’s events unfold in the dacha of Sergei Bassov and his wife Varvara. Paul Ready plays the former as a swaggering boor, emitting cackling laughter and caustic putdowns. In stark contrast, Sophie Rundle’s Varvara is sensitive and delicate, almost fragile, to such an extent that it is hard to believe that opposites ever attracted. Unsurprisingly, their childless marriage is on the rocks. She is frustrated by her futile, indolent existence. He is increasingly irritated by her mood swings.

Flitting around them are various houseguests and hangers-on. We meet Varvara’s younger brother Vlass (Alex Lawther), who thrums with restless energy and who, unlike his sister, refuses to take life seriously and always acts the fool. Bassov’s sister Kaleria (Doon Mackichan), a poet, lightens the mood at key junctures and keeps everyone entertained by singing songs, reciting verse and offering dreamy lyrical aphorisms: ‘The sun rises and the sun sets, but in our souls it is always twilight.’ Shalimov (Daniel Lapaine), once revered by Varvara, is a blocked and burnt-out writer, unable to put pen to paper because his readers have moved on (‘I’m as unnecessary to them as… Latin’) and the world has become baffling. ‘Somehow everyone seems to be in a tangle with themselves, they’re slippery, impossible to grasp.’ And Justine Mitchell’s Maria, ‘a ferocious woman’ to some intimidated men, is a strong, gutsy individual who at one point rallies the group to escape from their self-made isolation and use their social advantage to help others.

These are by no means the only characters onstage. Others resemble Bassov in being delightfully awful. Olga (Gwyneth Keyworth), oblivious of her privilege, complains about how tired she is before moaning about her children, her husband and the ‘torment’ of being a woman. Bassov’s drinking partner Pyotr Suslov (Arthur Hughes) annoys his wife Yulia (Adelle Leonce) so much that she threatens to shoot him. Meanwhile Suslov’s uncle Semyon (a scene-stealing Peter Forbes) is at a loose end after selling his factory. ‘I’ve got nothing to do but sit and count my money,’ he brags. Passing scornful commentary on these bored, embittered and self-absorbed people are a pair of watchmen who patrol the grounds. ‘Villa people,’ scoffs one. ‘All the same.’

This is very much an ensemble work. But the play’s teeming cast occasionally proves problematic: just as we are getting immersed in several individuals’ affairs or exchanges, stage directions change, character configurations shift, and new figures come along and vie for our attention. They don’t always succeed, for the first half of the play comprises a slow build-up largely devoid of dramatic tension. Gorky’s idle rich are exceptionally idle: they stroll, drink, flirt, sunbathe and put on theatricals. If Pirandello gave us characters in search of an author then Gorky presents us with a cast in search of a plot.

But good things come to those who wait. As we move out of the dacha and into the rural surrounds, the play changes gear. Vlass declares his love for the older, grey-haired Maria, and to his surprise finds his affection reciprocated. Ryumin (Pip Carter) tells Varvara he has loved her all his life, but after his pronouncement fails to move her, he asks for her pity instead. Trouble brews and tensions mount as other characters bicker and reveal deep-seated resentments. By the end of the proceedings, some relationships lie in tatters. Worse, distant gunfire and advancing forces signal that this extended summer party will soon be over. Bassov’s belief in ‘evolution, not revolution’ is nothing short of wishful thinking.

Hastie’s production is a triumph. The stage may at times be crowded but every actor pulls their weight and many of them dazzle, not least Rundle and Mitchell. Peter McKintosh creates wonders with his sets, from his country house rooms and veranda emerging from a hulking timber framework to his outdoors woodland glade. Siblings Nina and Moses Raine give Gorky’s original script a subtle polish by trimming dud lines, sprinkling in references to Chekhov and allowing characters to let off steam with the odd expletive. However, some of the Raines’ fine-tuning feels needless. They elicit a laugh from the audience with Bassov’s half-hearted compliment to his wife: ‘You’re intelligent, deep, et cetera.’ It is debatable whether this is a marked improvement on Gorky’s original: ‘You’re a splendid woman… clever, sincere… and all that.’

What this revival does well is keep us invested in the shallow lives of Russia’s elite – people who, in the words of Shalimov, are ‘so tragically incapable of living properly’. Gorky said of his 1902 play The Lower Depths, ‘The basic question that I wanted to pose was: what is better, truth or compassion?’ With Summerfolk, truth predominates. Yet Gorky also asserts the importance of compassion in his portrayal of the play’s two sympathetic characters, Varvara and Maria, each of them desperate to escape this stultifying retreat and do something productive and fulfilling.

When the play premiered in St Petersburg in November 1904 it divided audiences. Gorky expressed his satisfaction at ruffling feathers in a letter: ‘Summerfolk is not art, but it’s certainly a shot in the bullseye, and I am happy, like a devil who has tempted the righteous to get roaring drunk.’ He was too hard on himself: Summerfolk is art, and this production shows it can still hit the mark.

Summerfolk will be performed at the Olivier Theatre, London until 29 April.