By Darby Turnbull.
In these increasingly bleak and fraught times I think audiences and stages will gravitate towards Chekhov with more frequency. His works, especially the big 4 Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull and of course Three Sisters; show people and communities in stasis on the precipice of huge social change in relentless search for meaning in their bourgeois existences. Characters in Three Sisters refer to an impending storm; in turn of the 20th century Russia, we know their whole way of life is about to change. In the meantime, they’re bored, tired and depressed and their hubris is often incredibly funny. They sit around and talk about the enriching nature of work before it becomes toil and eventually a drudge, they’ve fallen out of love with their spouses and ravenous for romantic passion, intellectuals and artists without the opportunity or drive to fulfil their self-imposed potential, in the background their servants do the invisible work of holding them up. The Prozorov sisters, Olga, Masha and Irinia are living and working in a regional town, notably 20 miles from the nearest train station but they tell themselves that this is a brief interval before their glorious return to cosmopolitan Moscow. Joining them are a battalion of soldiers with nothing to do but at least offer a taste of the larger world they’re isolated from.
Their brother, Andrei, supposedly a promising scholar, will take a position at a university and their lives can really begin. Of course, life gets in the way. Masha married young to a mensch who adores her but fails to live up to her grandiose ideals and she’s embittered and resentful. Andrei, it transpires, has no moral spine and enters into a bad marriage with lower class, Natasha, takes a job as minor public servant and ruins the families fortunes by mortgaging their estate.
Amongst the mundane domesticity Chekhov gives his characters some of the most soulful, poetic prose on the existential terrors contained within the human spirit.
Gregg Carrol is a seasoned theatre maker with a long history of stage design and its evident in this production with a beautiful, bleak, imposing set that emphasizes the dissolute environment that’s becoming increasingly inhibiting. The costumes offer a burst of colour into the atmosphere and the styles and hues are well chosen for the characters personalities. Designer Amelia Carroll and seamstress Margaret Goy have done astronomical work in dressing the dozen actors in multiple outfits with thrift and efficiency even if it’s necessary to add some modern touches to the period attire with pants, shirts and shoes.
After long discussions with my companion for this performance and a few others in attendance we concluded that this presentation of the text really didn’t work for us. Far from ‘pushing the boundaries of contemporary theatre’ it felt bloated, overwrought and empty; words that should never be associated with Chekhov. I would never call myself a traditionalist, Andrew Scott’s one-man Vanya was a revelation, but when the essence of a piece is missing and you can’t find a hook, engagement becomes increasingly elusive.
The 12 members of the cast often look lost on the Theatreworks stage, constrained by a front-facing, presentational style that inhibits their ability to connect with each other as performers. There is little sense of history, relationships or complex emotional ties which are vital to the text. The cast appears to have been directed to give exaggerated, brash performances which lack tonal consistency amongst the ensemble, each seeming to exist in a different production. Many find themselves mugging to the audience, courting laughs rather than letting them emerge. By the final act their despair has been sapped of its power by the histrionics that the cast have been led into. There’s a reason why, in Chekhov especially, there’s so much profundity in the pouring of tea, sewing a sock or playing cards, it’s in the mundane where the pathos lies.
It’s a shame because the instincts are clearly there within the performances of the cast; as the melancholy and ultimately predatory Vershinin, Gabriel Partington throws himself into brittle self-delusion and has several amusing moments when he reveals just how lowly he thinks of his offstage wife. It’s funny because it exposes his character organically. On the opposite end of the spectrum Belle Hansen as the lower-class interloper Natasha gives a performance so arch that exists in a genre of its own. Natasha is an interesting character, even before her first entrance she’s derided by the sisters and once she marries into the family she schemes and manipulates to undermine them whilst also carrying off her own affair. She also makes it very clear that she knows how contemptuous they are of her. She’s a symbol of the upper middle classes’ fears of the nouveau riche forcing their way into their ranks. Hansen however has been directed to play the role as a Mrs Danvers type haunting spectre. All power to her, she completely commits to the bit and she’s a fabulous performer with unique comic timing, but it undermines the possibilities of the characters role in the story,
As the titular three sisters, Stella Carroll, Mia Landgren and Joanna Halliday give earnest performances but at present feel like sketches rather than deep, lived-in personalities. They all bring an element of snobbery and class prejudice that neatly undermines their aspirations to a higher, nobler, state of mind but more could have been done to explore the toll of romantic, professional and intellectual disappointment has on the bodies and souls. Landgren as big sister Olga emphasises her comparative youth and the curse of competence as she gets promoted against her will to headmistress at the school she teaches at, her schoolmarmish tendencies extend to her homelife and Landren has some nice moments of passive aggressive chirpiness. Stella Carroll brings an innocuous freshness to Irinia who starts the play as a wide eyed innocent and grows into a hardened but hopeful woman of the world. Carroll inhabits how it can feel to have things happen around you whilst you’re still learning the skills to participate. Everyone wants to play Marsha; the middle sister and Halliday throws herself into the part with relish. Marsha is the most disappointed, she falls the hardest and she also gets the best lines; it’s a feast for any actor. Like Hansen, Halliday goes big and plays Marsha as a sardonic energy vampire making a performance of her casual cruelty to her husband, carnal disappointments and ultimate heartbreak.
All three central performances contain the seeds of interesting and compelling characterisations that I would like to have seen developed with more intention and finesse.
Ultimately, for me, it was the quieter, more reactive performances that stood out for me. Laurence Young (Tuzenbark, Irinia’s suitor), Syd Brisbane (Ferapont, a servant) and Simon Chandler (Kulygin, Marsha’s husband) add lovely texture to all their appearances, especially when they embrace stillness in the chaos.
As much as I admire the ambition and scope of this enterprise I ultimately could not resonate with the take on the material, however there were several audience members beside me who greeted it with enthusiasm and joy so I would reiterate that when a production makes a few big swings it’s bound to hit some people.
Image: Steven Mitchell Wright
