The Russians in Chekhov’s plays almost always struggle with
feelings of insignificance. With his haunting THREE SISTERS (playing through
June 21st), Chekhov foreshadows the revolution he didn’t live to see—“There’s a storm coming to clean out
our society.”—And he mourns a
generation living in the past: Each sister wants to love and be loved but two
choose the wrong partner and one accepts “God’s will” to stay unmarried, honoring
restrictions as tightly bound as their hair.
Director Marta Rainer’s lovely, heartbreaking production
manages to capture the sisters’ palpable desperation and send it directly
across the footlights. What at first may seem to be the arch concerns of
Chekhov’s privileged characters still resonates today: Is happiness possible?
Can we make a difference in the world? Why are people suffering? Is there
greater meaning in life? Can we start over again…and when it’s revealed that no
one in this play, aristocratic or otherwise, will be happy—not even the school precept who
insists he is—we’re left as
bereft as the sisters.
Rainer and company mine the characters’ raw emotions even as
they try to control their outward affect. It’s a delicate dance, cleverly mirrored
at the start and play’s end in an actual slowly measured, winding circular
dance. The remarkable ensemble work at WST benefits even the smallest of roles:
John Davin and Charlotte Peed are the aging servants on whom hard work has
taken its toll. Davin thankfully provides some lighter moments when he can no
longer hear the directives of his demanding employers. Zack Georgian and Dan
Prior as the carefree young soldiers at the fringes of the tapestry make an
indelible impression as well, one trying to please Irina with small gifts and
one trying to delay the future by taking photos of the present.
Zena Chatilla as the innocent Irina, whose twentieth birthday
brings everyone together in the first act, slowly discovers that life holds no
satisfaction for her. Angela Bilkic as her sister Masha, has her spirit crushed
by a loveless marriage (to Shelley Bolman’s pompous schoolmaster) and an
unfulfilled romance with the dashing colonel (Woody Gaul) who is mired in a
hopeless marriage of his own. Gaul provides a
welcome laugh with saucer eyes when Bolman offers a Latin phrase designed to
impress.
You can feel the spark between Gaul
and Bilkic, the same spark noticeably missing from the brother’s union with a
ferocious woman (Marge Dunn) who controls his every move. Samuel L. Warton
plays the tragic son whom father “educated with a vengeance” for a career as a
professor but who ends up as a glorified clerk. Sacrifice gallops through the
family, with Caitlin Graham as the oldest sister, Olga, throwing herself into
teaching. There aren’t many victories for the sisters but Olga gets one when
Dunn’s tightfisted Natasha threatens to banish Peed’s loyal servant. (Just to
make Dunn’s character more villainous, Chekhov even references another orchard
when Dunn threatens to cut down their trees.)
Charles Linshaw as the brash, headstrong Baron who
rhapsodizes about the value of “work” while avoiding it altogether and Daniel
Boudreau as the unsophisticated dinner guest who seems to place his foot in his
mouth as often as his glass of vodka, both unfortunately set their cap for
Irina. John Kinsherf as Chekhov’s
physician stand-in, regrets everything, drowns himself in drink and consoles
himself with the notion that nothing matters at all. Because they all interact
so seamlessly with each other in WST’s compelling production, you hope against
hope that one, just one of them will escape with some joy.
