David J Glover

I would like to preface this review by saying that the following opinions are my own and do not reflect upon The Towerlight nor anyone associated with it. That said: this play is God-awful! The Three Sisters, directed by Irene Lewis, opens the 2006-2007 season of CenterStage. With a 2 hour and 50 minute running time, the play shows some difficulty in maintaining the audience’s focus at this early stage. In the play, written by Anton Chekhov, the three Prozorov sisters, Olga, Masha and Irina, patiently yearn for someone to take them out of their lifeless, provincial town and take them to the excitement and security of Moscow. The story takes place over several years and the sisters are accompanied in their house by their brother Andray, his wife Masha and a group of military personnel. The play is an insightful study of character relationships and human motivations set against the bleak turmoil of the Russian Provinces of the early 1900s. While it is true that both the political settings and character psychologies of The Three Sisters are perhaps a little distant for the average Baltimore theatergoer’s personal identification, the same could be said for any non-contemporary work, like Ibsen, Shakespeare or Euripides. Lewis has attempted to modernize Paul Schmidt’s translation and has unfortunately provided us with a laughable production that is neither a good example of Chekhov nor a good attempt at contemporization. Lewis, who rightly points out that the author openly recognized the humor in this play (Chekhov’s first works were vaudevillian style comic farces), makes glaring errors of judgment in both the pacing and comic timing inherent in this piece. I find it hard to believe, for example, that during a speech about the prejudices innate in social inequality – a theme which develops throughout this text – Chekhov had envisaged the actor to be grinning like an extra in a “Saturday Night Live” sketch. However, it is difficult to tell exactly how much is to be blamed on Lewis’ direction. It is certainly clear that the audience’s irritation with the character of Irina came directly from the actress’s two-dimensionality. Irina, the youngest and most idealistic of the sisters, is a far from happy character but Mahira Kakkar’s portrayal of Irina is almost bipolar. She is either ecstatically happy or miserably sad, both of which are equally annoying to watch. There is no texture or subtlety to this performance. Equally irritating is Gene Farber’s performance of Solyony. It is an admirable impersonation of Captain Darling from the sitcom Black Adder but it is not conducive to the world of the play. Tony Ward’s performance as Andrey, the brother of the three sisters, is a diamond in the rough. Ward manages to provide us with something that is lacking in the characters of this production; acting. Ward is a saving grace who is unfortunately sandwiched between mediocrity and occasional awfulness. Towson MFA alum Willy Conley performs well as 2nd Lieutenant Fedotik, but has been directed (for some unknown reason) to speak in sign language and have all his lines interpreted for the audience. This is simply distracting and unnecessary. Lewis has gone too far with the desire to modernize and comedify this piece, to provide us with the humor and texture that an authentic Russian audience may have felt in 1901 Moscow. Lewis quips in the playbill that “we can all share a chuckle” that Chekhov decided to give the baby “a name you’d only give a dog.” In the original text the child’s name is “Bobik” – in this production it has been changed to “Skippy.” In manipulating the moods of the play Lewis has lost much of the pathos and pain that is intertwined in Chekhov’s subtexts. By second-guessing Chekhov’s original authorial intention (albeit through the eyes of production Dramaturg Gavin Witt) Lewis has overlooked the huge swaths of existentialist angst (Chebutykin), radial idealization (Irina) and bleak realization (Masha) that abound within the text. As the character of Fyodor (Joe Hickey) states: “When things lose their form, they lose their identity.” This production has lost its form. I may be missing some subtle symbolism but there also appears to be a discontinuity in costume designer Candice Donnelly’s costumes. While the sisters and their sister-in-law support elaborate and timely costumes the soldier’s uniforms are simplistic to the point of awkwardness. One has to also question the quality of workmanship when pieces of costume fall off at climactic moments in the play. Overall, the best ingredient in this production is the sound. The 4th floor Head Theatre is a versatile space and it is nice to see a new layout including a trust stage and three-sided balcony level for the audience. This new configuration has provided Sound Designer David Budries adequate facilities to produce good quality, believable sound that complements the world of the play. These are only my opinions and I would recommend Towson students to go and see this performance if for no other reason than to have an opinion on it. The Three Sisters runs until Oct. 29. Tickets start at $10.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED HERE

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This review inspired the following letter to the editior -

‘Three Sisters’ is well-produced, humorous show

With regards to the theatre review titled “Awful ‘Three Sisters’ production butchers Chekhov” that I read a week ago: David Glover is wrong! It seems like the reviewer can’t grasp a simple concept: Anton Chekhov is funny! Three Sisters is actually a farce, and it’s supposed to make the audience giggle. Throw all your misconceptions about Chekhov out the window, the man’s funny. The play is funny. The translator for this particular production, Paul Schmidt, saw that was being lost with the British translations of this play, so he wrote an American translation. The translations done before him wrote in a very different style of language than Chekhov. Chekhov wrote in a very ordinary fashion, not in a stuffy British way. The British publications took the fun out of Chekhov, so Schmidt put it back in. Centerstage’s production of Three Sisters isn’t a horrible show. That is a total abomination to Anton Chekhov’s work. It’s a show you should go see because it does him some justice. The actors certainly deserve much more credit than Glover gives them. True, Mahira Kakkar (Irina) had difficulty with her character, but the rest of the cast doesn’t. If an actor can make you hate them (Kristin Fiorella), love them (Joe Hickey), or cry for them (Mary Fogarty), then they deserve the curtain call as much as Tony Ward does. And wouldn’t it be odd if Irene Lewis cast someone who had their hearing as a deaf person? Well, actually, that didn’t happen. Towson MFA graduate Willy Conley actually IS deaf. Irene Lewis, the director, not only reaches a wider group with this casting choice but when she tells Conley to actually speak, it is astonishingly effective and emotional. Granted, it’s a period piece. You can tell that from the costumes. The soldiers’ uniform that are “simplistic to the point of awkwardness” are actually authentic Russian uniforms rented from Britain. So if a epaulet falls off, it’s not the seamstress’s fault, nor does it take away from the production. It’s a real moment on stage, and the audience should cherish it. This is all purely my opinion though. You should go to the show and form your own opinion.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED HERE