At last, someone sees Beckett in Chekhov… I’ve been saying for decades that Chekhov is Beckettian, but was anybody listening…? Rory Mullarkey, whose translation for this exceptional production helps it to sing, in his fine foreword says exactly that, comparing Three Sisters with Waiting for Godot. And he likes Chekhov’s ellipses, his pauses when we listen to the harmonies in the air and our own thoughts.
Just listen to the words. Listen to their mix of consoling faith and existential angst. How to draw comedy from this—Chekhov called it a drama in four acts after all—but director Caroline Steinbeis with her splendid troupe of actors does just that. Pathos and comedy—who are we laughing at but ourselves…
Chekhov puts the three orphaned sisters through the mill over a span of several years: a fire, a duel, a death, ‘evil’ spirits (the posturing Solyony and Natalya Ivanovna, their brother Andrei’s vulgar two-timing wife, disrupting the household of these educated young ladies), and a gradual realisation they will not be going back to Moscow after eleven years in this tedious provincial backwater. Chekhov wrote it in Yalta, longing for the bright theatre lights of Moscow.
Their distracting pleasure is in the entertaining officers stationed temporarily in this dull town, to which their late father had been posted. Spinster Olga is a tired beyond-her-years schoolteacher; Masha married Latin-spouting schoolteacher Kulygin (long-suffering Keir Charles funny and kind) at too young an age; and youngest Irina, on whose name day the play opens joyfully, in the end is willing to settle for a man she doesn't love.
Masha has an affair with self-centred endlessly philosophising lieutenant colonel Vershinin, a married man. The audience sees through him straightaway. Her husband sees it all, but he still loves her, and he is ‘happy’. Happiness is thrown around as a talisman. He would have been a better match for Olga—he says so himself. What makes people happy—for eighty-year-old Anfisa, it is her own room…
Growing old and forgetting are embodied by the military doctor Chebutykin (the most Beckettian: “what difference does it make”) and the hard-of-hearing nanny Anfisa, here also replacing Ferapont as deliverer of council office papers to disillusioned Andrei who has not fulfilled his promise.
Chekhov’s plays are frequently staged, so I assume most in the audience will know Three Sisters and look for nuances—nuances there are aplenty—but I am pleasantly surprised there are many here new to it. They are very lucky to see this production as a first Chekhov. I, an old lag, having translated his plays and reviewed many English and Russian productions, was not expecting to be totally won over. I love it. It is full of life.
The cast is superlative, a fine ensemble playing it like the piece of music it is. Michelle Terry’s Olga breaks down the fourth wall in the opening act—are we the locals or is she recounting her family history to herself? She is warm, direct, natural, and can she hit the notes... Shannon Tarbet’s Masha is all emotion, volatile, her supressed talent needs an outlet. Ruby Thompson does not overplay the arc of Irina coming of age to the realities of life. Sister-in-law Natalya, the jarring note in the household—Natalie Klamar plays her with relish—seems to be the future.
Peter Wight’s Chebutykin, a frequent visitor to the household, one of the family almost, is quietly indifferent to life and fate—one baron more, one baron less… Did he love their mother? He can’t remember… Ishia Bennison’s nanny Anfisa is a brief comic turn.
The other men are something else. Paul Ready has the straight-faced measure of Vershinin, so self-involved it is easy to mock him. Lovesick Michael Abubakar as Baron Tuzenbach (he foresees a storm coming) is endearing, though he’s not what Irina had in mind. Richard Pyros as a Lermontov-obsessed, Pushkin-quoting Solyony is a great creepy Romantic parody weirdo with hands that smell of corpses... Kelvin Ade’s young Fedotik is sweet (there’s no Rode). Stuart Thompson plays Andrei from loner (he has three sisters…) to gambler to hen-pecked husband with shy intensity. (I remember him in Almeida’s Spring Awakening.)
The stagecraft is remarkable. Is the small, cramped, candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse with its uncomfortable seats, where I’ve seen baroque opera and more, made for Chekhov? Many friends warn me, no, but they ought to come and see this clever composition. It is such a good production, and the company’s many hands make light work of it. Especially of those choreographed candles... metaphors too.
The whole space, almost every inch, is the Prozorovs’ large home—yes large. Unbelievably, there are three floors: the balcony, the stage and the lower depths. The outside corridors are used—we can see Andrei nursing his baby if we care to look behind us—actors make entrances down the aisles and over the balustrades.
The props are sparse: wooden boxes, chairs, balalaikas, a swing and lots of flowers. The musicians (Maddie Cutter, Sarah Field, Gabriela Opacka-Boccadoro) on cello, trumpet, woodwind, violin and dombra under musical director Rob Millet’s direction (also percussion, cimbalom) are fabulous. Composer is Oliver Vibrans. The "Little Grey Wolf" lullaby sends me down nostalgia street.
The list of creatives is long (almost fifty!); there’s even a candlelight designer (Anna Watson). Somewhere amongst that lot is director Steinbeis. Look hard and you’ll find her, but her name ought to be on the front cover with Chekhov and Mullarkey’s.
Chekhov puts into Olga’s mouth the play’s last words. Our sufferings will bring happiness to those who follow after. If only we could know… Is this hope or delusion? Chekhov holds the mirror up for all time. Russian soldiers, stationed somewhere near Perm, at the end of the play leave for Poland. A dance to the music of time…