THREE SISTERS
THREE SISTERS, ATYP and Cry Havoc co-production at ATYP Studio 1, October 15-November 6 2011.
Drama’s most famous sisters, Olga, Masha and Irina Prozorova are famously trapped in a genteel web of bewildered boredom in Chekhov’s Russia, where they are going quietly mad in the pointlessness of their provincial pre-Revolution existence. It’s successfully mirrored in the uber-Kapitalism of 21st century Moscow via a new adaptation director Kate Revzand the Cry Havoc mob have devised, based on translations by Laurence Senelick and David Mamet.
The result is a play that is seamlessly modern without either losing its essence or taking on the clumsy colloquialism that so often disfigures “Aussie” adaptations. As well as the Ikea-furnished home and contemporary dress (designer Lucilla Smith), the key to their plight in this production is the decision, presumably by director Revz, to thread throughout a recurring musical motif that points to the updating of the play.
Roland Orzabal’s Tears For Fears '80s classic Mad World as sung or hummed, in scattered fragments, by various cast members, somehow embodies Chekhov’s fragile, subtle balance between hope and despair that is central to the success of any production of the play.
The lyrics are uncannily apt: “All around me are familiar faces / worn out places / worn out faces / bright and early for the daily races / going nowhere / going nowhere ” and “ Hide my head I wanna drown my sorrow / no tomorrow / no tomorrow / And I find it kind of funny / I find it kind of sad / The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had ” each verse followed by the repeated refrain: “Mad world, mad world .”
In a choreographed opening sequence each character is seen, lost in a bubble of aloneness, performing an action that will later be revealed, before the play gets under way, as their own personal key. What is gradually revealed is that the suffocating ennui, so desperately fought against by the girls and Irina in particular, is an illusion. Their lives and time itself are actually rushing by with palpable speed.
Casting is another key to the production’s success: Megan O’Connell is a wondrous Masha, smouldering like an apparently quiescent bushfire in her dull marriage, until awakened by the dangerous breeze of Berynn Schwerdt's Vershinin. Passion and love are as disastrous for her as is the mirage of Moscow for Kelly Paterniti’s Irina, a tremulous butterfly beating her hopes to death on the vision of her unattainable dream. Georgia Adamson, as the school teacher Olga, is tragic in her own sensible way: only too aware of her fate – to be promoted to principal and permanent spinsterhood – and finally resigned to it with a despairing last cry for escape.
Celeste Dodwell makes the most of the comedic elements of the social-climbing sister-in-law Natasha. She is a bright, brittle contrast to the sisters and the way she gradually colonises the house and their lives is beautifully judged. While Anthony Gooley, as Solyony, is once again impressive in his ability to portray a psycho-comedy character who is simultaneously attractive and unnerving.
Veterans Diana Mclean and John Turnbull anchor the young cast. Mclean’s aging housekeeper, terrified of impending penury if the heedless Natasha chucks her on the scrapheap, is a piteous reminder of the class conflict at the heart of the play. At the other end of the social spectrum is Turnbull’s wearily cynical Dr Chebutykin, forever regretful of his lost and illicit love for the sisters’ mother.
Vodka also plays a prominent role in this production, as it does in 21st century Russia, to both comic and grim effect. But at the heart are intelligent, thoughtful and moving performances from the entire ensemble in a staging that recognises that Three Sisters is the least comedic but possibly most heartrending of Chekhov’s best-loved plays. Cry Havoc has pulled off another fine show and you still have time to catch up with it.
