Three Sisters, Southwark Playhouse

There is a lot to love about this latest Chekhov production at the Southwark Playhouse. Anya Reiss, famous for her two electrifying family dramas Spur of the Moment and The Acid Test, has produced a scintillating distillation of Chekov’s timeless mediation on futility, love, and longing.  Unfortunately the visceral script is largely lost within a plodding production that rarely explodes into the life that is simmering below the surface.

Reiss has transplanted the production from rural nineteenth century Russia to the outskirts of an unspecified British embassy in a Middle East still reeling from the effects of the Arab Spring and the War on Terror. Irina, Olga, and Masha still occupy the beating heart of this play, but the poignancy of their quest for love and a return to Moscow (here London, a very clever move) is largely lost within the production’s confusion. Instead we get a larger treatise on human worthlessness and several coup-de-theatres, which while impressive, fail to transform this into a remarkable Chekhov production.

The central problem here is not the play, or strikingly adept adaptation, but the meddling pace that, barring a sudden explosion of Pulp’s ‘Common People’, fails to take off.

There is some fine acting within the ensemble, but all too often director Russell Bolam appears to have compelled his cast to strut and pose, rather than let the characters speak for themselves. This is most evidently true in the representation of Natasha, Kulygin, and Solyony, who all appear as wild caricatures, gutting the play of its empathetic soul. We first see Natasha clad in a mini skirt clutching a bottle of value Vodka as she interrupts the sisters’ party in pursuit of their brother Andrey. Simplifying the characters into these stock types doesn’t help to capture the full poignancy of the play.

This is not a classic production. There are a number of faults within its acting and direction. However, the writing must be celebrated for its daring and innovation. The relocation is effective; the language is pertinent, visceral, and striking; the atmosphere is muted and tense. In a different production this adaption could become a modern classic. It is a shame that the current ensemble at the Southwark playhouse haven’t achieved that.