The flowers spelling out Irina’s name make this party feel like a funeral. It’s an appropriate choice for Caroline Steinbeis’s bluntly sullen, occasionally sharp-tongued production of Chekhov’s unhappy family drama.
Focus is scattered in this first Chekhov play to be staged in the Wanamaker, in which the inhabitants of the Prozorov household talk at each other without taking in anyone else’s words. These are our three sisters: Michelle Terry’s snippy, wrung-out Olga, Shannon Tarbet’s disenchanted Masha, and Ruby Thompson’s wide-eyed dreamer, Irina. Around them stir men who pine or fight for their affections, all downtrodden individuals in various stages of despair.
The invasive new wife, Natalya Ivanovna (Natalie Klamar), who saves her snobbish vulgarity for the second half, is prized with the most sumptuous costumes by Oli Townsend and Laura Rushton, the ruffles on her dresses growing to the point of nearly swallowing her whole. But a few peripheral characters float oddly in the sisters’ grand home, with the world around them not always feeling concretely established. The presence of Richard Pyros’s vile Vassily Solyony is never quite justified, and Ishia Bennison’s poor nanny Anfisa is relegated to being promptly chased out of every room.
Emotion cracks through more easily after a neighbouring fire, as dreams are diminished by the reality of work and the limits of love. Rory Mullarkey’s forthright translation emphasises repetition, as if the characters are constantly having to convince themselves: “I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy,” insists Fyodor Kulygin (Keir Charles, desperate, wonderfully mustachioed), followed by Masha, his wife: “I’m done, I’m done, I’m done.”
Mullarkey’s script draws out moments of humour, particularly in offhand frustrations: the snapped apology after a declaration of secret love made without realising someone else is in the room; the curt call of “that’s enough” as a woman reels loudly from heartbreak. But the upfront nature of the speech also softens the impact of the pain.
Steinbeis’s direction struggles to direct our attention, with the momentum coming far more in the text than the action. Still, there is no doubt that Chekhov’s domestic dramas suit the claustrophobia of this candlelit stage: flickering light bounces off the characters’ faces as they throw their grief, longing and fury at one another, hoping that by doing so, they will find a happier way to live.
• At the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, London, until 19 April
