by Anton Chekhov
seen at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on 19 March 2025
Caroline Steinbeis directs Michell Terry as Olga, Shannon Tarbet as Masha and Ruby Thompson as Irina in Rory Mullarkey's translation of Chekhov's Three Sisters.
The candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse is an ideal space for rendering the intimacy verging on claustrophobic intensity of a Russian household existing on faded grandeur (their father was a General) and over-optimistic hopes for the future - fulfilment in work or fulfilment in Moscow seem to keep the sisters going, though Olga is crushed by her work, Masha is disillusioned in her marriage, and Irina enthuses about the ennobling prospects of work without having yet had to try it. Their brother Andrei (Luke Thompson) meanwhile dreams of becoming a professor - or is it that his sisters dream this for him? - and in the meantime giddily marries a local social climber Natalya (Natalie Klamar).
Soldiers are billeted in the town and provide a welcome distraction, though they too are marking time. Tuzenbach (Michael Abubakar) and Solyony (Richard Pyros) both fall for Irina, while the philosophising Vershinin (Paul Ready) attracts Masha. Despite these developments a certain listlessness pervades the play, as the characters talk and talk but rarely converse: even Tuzenbach's declaration to Irina is baffled by her less than enthusiastic response, while we have to infer a dalliance between Masha and Vershinin and wonder at the credulity of her husband Kulyigin (Keir Charles). In a clever twist, Natalya's infidelity (also obvious to all except her spouse) is with someone whom we never see.
The first act is comparatively brightly lit for Irina's name day celebrations and the first arrival of the soldiers, but the middle two acts take place at night time (though not the same night) and the overhead candelabra are extinguished; the light sources are simply the candles on the pillars and those held close to the face by the actors. This cleverly focuses the attention on the tell-tale signs of stress and impatience particularly among the women. By the time of the second act Andrei is married and Natalya has begun her take-over of the management of the house, relying on a cunning mixture of sentimentality over her children (who could criticise her for wanting what's best for them?) and a ruthless way with servants and old fashioned views of loyalty. The sisters are powerless to stop her and Andrei has retreated to gambling and domestic inaction.
The third act, notionally in the bedroom now shared by Olga and Irina (since Natalya's son "needs" the healthier atmosphere of what had been Irina's bedroom) is here envisaged as a general space at the top of a stairway cleverly revealed in the stage floor. It's hardly surprising that menfolk retreating from the fire raging through the town should bed down for a while here until they are evicted in the name of propriety. Even more effectively, when Andrei embarks on his long self-justification, where it might be presumed that his sisters can hear him while modestly behind screens, here, they have retreated to further annexes, leaving him talking to no-one. This serves to reinforce the general unwillingness of so many of the characters to face up to unpleasantness of any sort: Olga's tired "oh, leave it until tomorrow, Andrei" is quite understandable at the end of an exhausting night, but also fatally symptomatic of a pervasive procrastination.
In the open air again, the final act in which hopes are dashed is a masterclass in dramatic tension: a duel is obviously going to happen but no-one will directly talk about it, and in the meantime the departure of the soldiers prompts only banal farewells.
The cast performs well, the verbosity of some of the characters, and their infuriating blindnesses, are convincingly presented without unduly exasperating the audience. Intriguingly there is more unbridled bad temper on display than in other productions of the play as tempers fray: Masha is obviously highly strung from the beginning; Solyony (the definitely rejected suitor) verges on the psychopathic; Natalya veers quickly from a nauseating wheedling to perhaps confected but still vicious rage when crossed. In this intimate theatrical space the sisters are more certainly trapped no matter what.
