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Three Sisters
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse  Spring 2025

Chekhov’s Three Sisters, at the Sam Wanamaker Theatre, takes us to the claustrophobic changing world of Russia at the dawn of the 20th Century.

The clear translation by Rory Mullarkey, directed by Caroline Stenbeis, delivers a generally sensitive portrayal of the characters and their restless discontent while allowing the humour of their behaviour to provoke occasional laughter without being tempted to turn it into a comedy.

The Prozonov family of the three sisters Olga, Masha and Irena, along with their brother Andrei, are restless and uncertain about their future. They speak of going to Moscow, a symbol of a bigger world away from their stifling life in the countryside hundreds of miles from the city lights.

There is even an unsettling instability in the people around them, such as the soldiers visiting in their dress uniforms and the long-standing family friend Chebutykin (Peter Wight) the often clumsy depressed and occasionally drunk doctor.

Lieutenant Tusenbach spends much of his time pondering the meaning of life, his ideas chiming with Irena (Ruby Thompson) the younger of the three sisters, who he asks to marry. He talks about a “storm is coming” that will sweep away the world they know, bringing a time when “everybody will be working.”

He tells the sisters that the new battery commander Vershinin (Paul Ready) also talks a lot about the shape of the world along with his worries about his wife who keeps trying to kill herself.

The only figure exaggerated for effect is the disturbingly dysfunctional Captain Solyony (Richard Pyros), who regularly peppers the events with absurd and provocative actions.

The older sister Olga is played by Michelle Terry as a stiff unmarried woman who never looks happy and constantly seems frustrated with her local teaching job. Her impatience with the world is immediately conveyed in the opening scene of Irena’s Saints Day where she speaks in such a fast deadpan manner you could easily miss its meaning.

We first see Shannon Tarbet as Masha on that same day reading. She is interested in art and music but having married as a teenager to the rather staid schoolteacher Kulygin (Keir Charles), is bored with life. Her husband tries to be kind but in a rather unimaginative way, for instance, by bringing Irina the gift he has already given her of a book about his school.

Masha gets one of the first laughs from the audience when, after having said she won’t stay for lunch, hears something of the engaging conversation of Vershinin and suddenly announces she will stay for lunch after all.

The brother Andrei, as often happens in productions of this play, remains mostly in the background though his decision to mortgage the family home to pay his gambling debts will affect his sisters greatly, as will his marriage to Natalia. Later in the play, you might see him wandering balconies gently carrying a baby in his arms.

Early on Natalya, played by Natalie Klamer, is treated sympathetically, her awkwardness in the world of the family illustrating the insensitivity of Masha rather than Natalya’s bad fashion sense. However, once married, she is shown to be increasingly controlling.

There is sadness and defeat for almost every character in the play, but the occasional humour, the fine almost at times lyrical dialogue, along with the many moments in which someone will show kindness or yearn for a different world will encourage a sense of hope.

Keith McKenna

Review of Three Sisters - Sam Wanamaker Playhouse 2025