Review: Three Sisters

© Joan Marcus

For all their staying power over the years, the plays of Anton Chekhov are remarkably fragile works in performance. It’s so rare that all the elements come together--that all of the performers work in synch, that the directorial tone is cohesive—that more often than not contemporary productions are a trial to sit through.

 

The Classic Stage Company’s revival of Three Sisters is a case in point. Although it contains many admirable elements, including several worthwhile performances and a striking set design, it never coheres into a satisfying whole. There are stirring moments, but the general unevenness is ultimately defeating.

 

Director Austin Pendleton, who staged a 2009 production of Uncle Vanya at the same theater, has reunited several of its cast members for this effort, most notably the starry married duo of Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard.

 

The titular siblings so famously longing to return to Moscow are played here by Gyllenhall as Masha, trapped in a loveless marriage; Jessica Hecht as Olga, the spinster schoolteacher; and Juliet Rylance as the idealistic youngest sister, Irina.

 

The supporting cast is no less impressive. Besides Sarsgaard as the military officer who becomes the object of Masha’s ill-fated obsession, there are Josh Hamilton as the sisters’ unhappy brother Andrey; Marin Ireland as Natasha, his shrewish wife; and Paul Lazar as Masha’s much older husband. Smaller roles are filled out by such theater veterans as Roberta Maxwell, George Morfogen and Louis Zorich.

 

As with the Vanya, Gyllenhaal and Sarsgaard are again the weakest links here, delivering listless performances that rarely delve beneath the surface. Faring much better are Hecht, who infuses Olga with a poetic intensity, and Rylance, utterly radiant.

 

The supporting turns are similarly uneven. Hamilton is quite moving as the forlorn brother, for instance, while the wildly gesticulating Ireland seems in another, far more modern, play entirely.

 

Paul Schmidt’s translation, while undeniably accessible, is also problematic, filled with jarring slang that feels inappropriate for the period.

 

Kudos, however, to set designer Walt Spangler, who use the CSC’s awkward space to excellent effect. The playing area is dominated by a massive dining table fully ornamented for a lavish feast, providing an apropos visual correlative to the sisters’ regimented lives. When the table is lifted via pulleys to provide an open space for the final act set in a courtyard, it feels positively liberating.

 

Classic Stage Company, 136 E. 13th St. 212-352-3101. www.classicstage.org.