Three Sisters

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.

Hotspur, Falstaff and Harry England

by William Shakespeare

seen at Shakespeare's Globe on 10 May 2019

The more conventionally named Henry IV Part One, Henry IV Part Two and Henry V have been given alternative titles as a series of 'state-of-the-nation' plays which can be seen independently or, given sufficient stamina, together as today on a 'trilogy day'. The two parts of Henry IV take their alternative titles from characters considered important enough to be named in the expended titles of the original Quarto editions, while the third title reminds us of the intimate connections of Henry V with mythologised ideas about kingship and English greatness as exemplified by this particular warrior king, prompted by his father's advice to distract unhappy citizens from civil unrest by embarking on foreign wars.

The plays, directed by Sarah Bedi and Federay Holmes, are presented by a company of ten actors - five women and five men - joined by Michelle Terry as Hotspur in the first play of the sequence. Sarah Amankwah plays Prince Hal, later King Henry V, in all plays, and takes only one very small doubling part in Falstaff; the others take on all the other roles. In the full texts there are over one hundred parts across all three plays, though there are some cuts in the performance, and given the fluid performance style at the Globe, the changes of role are often signalled by the mere donning of a new cloak and a different posture, sometimes in full view of the audience. During the whole day this rarely led to any confusion from my point of view as a spectator, and only once did an actor definitely address a nobleman by the wrong name in a series of greetings. 

Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

seen at Shakespeare's Globe on 15 May 2018

Another Hamlet - could this be possible after two visits to the excellent Almeida production last year? Fortunately the play is almost inexhaustible, and even though this is the third production I have seen performed at Shakespeare's Globe, I agreed to the suggestion of some friends visiting from Australia who wanted to see it and to experience this special theatre.

Federay Holmes and Elle While are directing a company performing both Hamlet and As You Like It concurrently, aware that they are two plays newly written for the original Globe within a year of each other. There is considerable 'gender-blind' casting, in this case with Hamlet, Horatio and Laertes played by women - Michelle Terry, Catrin Aaron and Bettrys Jones respectively - and (perhaps more unusually) Ophelia played by a man - Shubham Saraf, who also takes the small part of Osric. Claudius (James Garnon), Gertrude (Helen Schlesinger), Polonius (Richard Katz) and other parts are more predictably cast, though interestingly Guildenstern (Nadia Nadarajah) signs in BSL while Rosencrantz (Pearce Quigley) takes on all the speaking lines of the pair, signing to his friend to clear up the no doubt fumbling attempts of the Danish courtiers to sign for themselves.

Love's Labour's Won - or - Much Ado About Nothing

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 5 March 2015

This production, provocatively retitled 'Love's Labour's Won' to underscore its relation t 'Love's Labour's Lost', is directed by Christpoher Luscombe with Edward Bennett as Benedick and Michelle Terry as Beatrice. It is set just after the First World War ostensibly in Charlecote Park, again to draw parallels to the earlier play.

The same production team is responsible for both plays; at the opening of this one there are hospital beds and nurses, but this soon gives way to the lighter-hearted mood of relief that ushered in the Twenties. Once again Nigel Hess's music evokes the era, with a concluding ragtime-like dance number.

Love's Labour's Lost

by William Shakespeare

seen by live streaming from the RSC on 11 February 2015

This production directed by Christopher Luscombe features Edward Bennett as Berowne and Michelle Terry as Rosaline. It is set in the summer of 1914 ostensibly at Charlecote, the Elizabethan manor house near Stratford on Avon (in whose park the boy William is reputed by some to have poached deer).

Details of the manor house have been used and adapted to provide a library and a drawing room as interiors, and a gatehouse and roofscape, as well as indication of the park, as exteriors. The stage design, by Simon Higlett, is inventive and bewitching. Music by Nigel Hess evokes the style of Elgar and the often melancholy tone of folksong to brilliant effect.