“Three Sisters” at Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
Jeremy Malies on the South Bank
19 February 2025
Perhaps I’m not enough of a purist? I’m a sucker for concept productions though obviously want these to sustain their basic idea and extra level of meaning right the way through. The Cherry Orchard in outer space managed this, and a production of Three Sisters set during the Nigerian Civil War was unforgettable. For a definitive purist’s experience of Three Sisters then I look no further than the production I saw at the Almeida.
Ruby Thompson, Michelle Terry, Shannon Tarbet.
Photo credit: Johan Persson.
Right off the bat here it should be said that Rory Mullarkey’s translation of Three Sisters (however free) is indeed a translation; he studied Russian at Cambridge. Seeing other versions of Chekhov described as “translations” when a non-Russian speaker has simply aggregated three or so of the most literal English translations is one of my bugbears. And don’t get me started on people who have no Dano-Norwegian claiming to have translated Ibsen!
But occasionally, a Mullarkey modernism (the tone is idiomatic) still jars. Would, in any iteration, one of the Prozorov sisters say of another that she has “completely lost the plot”? Such things are odd because we are definitely in Chekhov’s time scheme with mention of the great socio-economic storm that is looming and a reference to the 1892 Panama Canal Scandal. Today’s vernacular and the original period seem at odds.
The production certainly flows, and designer Oli Townsend is able to make the usually difficult transition from house to orchard in Act Two effortlessly. Floral motifs on the doors and backdrop (already there from the start) are emphasized by candlelight design from Anna Watson. Characters carry lamps and candles, and the scene becomes a spontaneous minuet with imaginative blocking by director Caroline Steinbeis. There is a thrill to the movement as, for a while, nobody is quite sure which friend, lover, relative, or servant is around them amid the shadows.
A stumbling block for me with the play is always whether the actor cast as Natalya (Natalie Klamar here) can come across as a vulgar and disruptive outsider. Poor dress sense, pushing one of the sisters out of her bedroom to create a nursery, and the offstage adultery with a senior officer ought to be enough but seldom is.
Paul Ready and Michelle Terry.
Photo credit: Johan Persson.
I like the fact that Mullarkey and Steinbeis have the production step outside itself to toy with Chekhovian motifs. Chebutykin bringing on the inevitable samovar with lit sparklers as a name-day present for youngest sister Irina (Ruby Thompson) is surely self-aware and teases us as to expectations.
As Chebutykin, Peter Wight makes this aging army doctor the most affecting figure on the stage with his great monologue. Mullarkey calibrates this so that we truly wonder if Chebutykin might have fathered Irina, and elsewhere we empathize with a man who can now barely read newspapers let alone a book. He has a Beckettian angst over whether he truly exists such is his lack of impact on his surroundings. Chebutykin saying that his life seems to have passed in a flash is one of the most devastating lines of the night. And unlike, say Uncle Vanya, the characters here don’t have quite the same stoicism at least as Steinbeis chooses to present the play.
A positive is the way that middle sister Masha (Shannon Tarbet) and superficially glamorous military officer Vershinin (Paul Ready) conduct their flirtation and probable affair. Both are in dysfunctional loveless marriages, with Vershinin’s unseen wife being suicidal. Masha and Vershinin share a facility with words and as the actors come through the dense vitreous exchanges there are moments when the production really takes wing. Mullarkey’s translation is seductive here as he gives the characters cascades of similes and inversions which, in a programme note, he compares to the phrasing of the Chopin music that Chekhov admired so much.
And what of the venue’s artistic director Michelle Terry as oldest sister Olga? Terry does much with the character’s stillness; she might be marshalling much of the action but the actor subdues her flair and charisma as the stronger emotions of other characters eddy around her. You just know that she would be the perfect headmistress who would live through others.
The live music is interesting and truly integrated. It features a cimbalom which is a trapezoid instrument whose strings are struck. Rob Millett injects mystery and tremolo into his use of this, with the odd note being martial and reminding us that we are in a garrison town. At its best, the momentum of Oliver Vibrans’ music reflects the interweaving of the characters’ voices as they alternate between being poignant, amusing, ardent, and self-destructive.
Not every aspect of the evening gels so impressively as music with plot and action. This is by no means my favourite Chekhov play, and at many productions I end up longing for the train to Moscow just as much as the title characters. Not so here; there is a lot to savour and the many gags and aphorisms in the translation find their mark. But it’s a disjointed evening in which the conversational tone seems at odds with the social fabric depicted.
