It's difficult to stage Chekhov. His plays are exquisitely detailed and rich in poetic realism so that what he called comedy can be played [and famously has been played] as tragedy, and his subtly developed characters are beloved challenges for actors, who are seldom wholly successful playing them. Chekhov is regularly prescribed in culturally elevating, if not curative, doses, but even a great play this comic, tragic and beautiful is more often a leaden, and sometimes soporific, theatergoing experience than a triumphant one. If you have never seen Three Sisters, this is an intelligently directed, well-acted and staged production in a clear but uninspired translation.
In 1976 at Stratford, this production's director, Martha Henry, was brilliant as Olga, the resigned eldest sister in John Hirsch's production, the finest Three Sisters I have ever seen (not excluding Olivier's, the Moscow Art Theatre's, and the all-star Actors Studio productions). So she knows and loves this play as well as anyone. I remember being startled during intermission of its opening performance by the great dancer Erik Bruhn who said, "I don't see that much drama: is this really as good as I think it is?"!
Martha Henry has given the current production some of the visual touches I remember from Hirsch's. And in beautiful Lucy Peacock's admirably spirited Masha, Tom McCamus's likably flirtatious Lt. Colonel Vershinin, James Blendick's sadly resigned Doctor Cherbutykin, Juan Chioran's amazingly commanding troublemaker Solyony, and Peter Hutt's actually interestingly tedious pedant, Kulygin, she has almost ideally cast characters, Not far behind those are Kelly Fox's maddeningly self-satisfied Natasha, the vulgar sister-in-law who takes over the house and cheats on her husband to everyone's discomfort; Joyce Campion as the ancient servant Anfisa whom Natasha cruelly picks on; and Sean Arbuckle as Baron Tuzenbach, doomed by his accommodating kindness and lack of ego.
Irene Poole is a colorless eldest-sister/schoolmarm, seeming not to be old enough or rigid enough or smart enough for Olga. Pretty Dalal Badr doesn't yet have the inner sparkle to live up to Irina's necessary star quality. And the overall feeling of the drama is just a little too relaxed in the intelligence of its choices to command much concern, much less real emotional involvement.
