Theatre in Review: Three Sisters (Classic Stage Company) A friend of mine often remarks it is God's mercy that there has never been a perfect production of Three Sisters. He says that Anton Chekhov's vision is so powerful, his character insights so penetrating, that, experienced in their purest form, the play would be unbearable for mere mortals. Or, as T.S. Eliot so succinctly put it, "Humankind cannot bear very much reality." Austin Pendleton's staging of Three Sisters mercifully stops short of perfection, I suppose, yet his is a fuller, truer account than any I have ever seen. Pendleton doesn't so much stage the play as he unleashes it, scattering across the CSC stage a vividly detailed, intensely alive portrait of a community of lost souls. This is most evident in the first act, in which the cast assembles for the birthday celebration of Irina, the youngest and most fragile of the three Prozorov sisters, all of whom are drifting through life, waiting for something meaningful to happen. The director's all-seeing eye is nearly as intent as the author's, and, through dozens of telling little details, we see who is in love and who is not, who is tense with expectation and who is wracked with melancholy, and, perhaps most important of all, who is at home in this house and who is terribly adrift. Canny casting is the key here, beginning with an especially compelling trio of siblings. As Olga, the eldest sister, who is bored and dispirited by her job as a teacher, Jessica Hecht is a palpably weary presence, seeking redemption through sheer endurance. There's steel under the polite exterior, however; witness the shocked and disgusted reaction to another sister's confession of love. Juliet Rylance's Irina, the youngest of the three, is not the winsome ingénue actresses often make of her; instead, she's a borderline hysteric, racked with fear that life is passing her by. For all her mordant line readings, Maggie Gyllenhaal's Masha is less acidulous than usual, giving us a beautiful, sensual woman who clings to an impossible, adulterous relationship because it is the one thing that makes her feel alive. The people surrounding them are no less worthy of your attention. Josh Hamilton's Andrey, the ladies' feckless and resentful brother, is a bundle of undirected energy, clearly fed up with the complex women in his family. ("You're so sweet! So ordinary!" he tells Natasha, his fiancée, drawing a contrast between her and his neurotic siblings.) Even as Marin Ireland's Natasha morphs from awkward rustic interloper into the domineering head of the household, she retains her nervous laugh and self-deprecating gestures, using them to wave away her transparently selfish motives. Roberta Maxwell is touching as an aging nanny, terrified of being put out to pasture. George Morfogen adds a touch of bleak amusement as a civil servant who torments Andrey with his petty demands. Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Anson Mount are both effective as the two very different men who love Irina, both in vain. Louis Zorich makes something surprisingly commanding out of Chebutykin, the aging, alcoholic doctor who fails to notice the suffering unfolding at such close quarters. Good as all the members of the cast are, it is Pendleton's knack for orchestrating dozens of revealing bits of business that makes this Three Sisters such a revelation. A conversation between Andrey and Natasha is filled with pauses that tell you all you need to know about the disappointments of their young marriage. Olga and her married lover share a too-intimate moment together, while the others quietly look on, taking it in and saying nothing. Andrey, nagged by his wife, quietly, ashamedly informs his sisters that a house party has been cancelled, while Natasha observes the action from afar, shrouded in half-light. A frantic Irina claws her way through a trunkful of clothes, as if looking for the place where her hopes were stored away forever. The transition between the second and third acts becomes a stunning summing-up of Chekhov's themes, as Irina sits downstage in a pool of light, playing solitaire, that most pointless and self-absorbed of amusements, while the company rearranges the set around her. Not everything works. As Kulygin, Masha's fatuous schoolteacher spouse, Paul Lazar is a tad too consciously comic. Peter Sarsgaard is fine as Vershinin, Masha's lover, giving the character a surprising, but not inaccurate, touch of callousness, but he is supposed to be at least a decade older than the title characters, and it's a great pity that no attempt was made to age him. Nevertheless, this production comes closer than any in recent memory to realizing Chekhov's account of lives spent in constant anticipation of fulfillments that are doomed to remain forever elusive. Pendleton is aided by a fine team of designers. Walt Spangler clears the CSC stage of clutter, using only a large refectory table and a few pieces of furniture to sketch in three different locations. Keith Parham's lighting is most effective when casting a melancholy cloak of night across the stage; Pendleton stages certain scenes in silhouette, to great effect. Marco Piemontese's costumes capture the essential contradiction of late-Victorian ladies' wear, in which modesty vies with a certain sensuality. Christian Frederickson and Ryan Rumery's incidental music blends mournful cello solos with faintly mocking chimes; they also provide a variety of effects, including a clock, birdsong, wind, and a military band. I've heard a few people complain that Paul Schmidt's translation is a bit too contemporary-sounding, but, to me, it's all in the service of a production that gives an electric charge to a play that, in other hands, has seemed rather too studied in its sadness. In recent years, CSC has worked its way through the Chekhov canon, this is the best one yet.--David Barbour 
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