Review of Loft Theatre Company production of Three Sisters (2015)

A family is beset by conflicting emotions and unfulfilled dreams. Passing time and a widening circle bring only further complications, and reality eventually has to be faced.

Make no mistake. This is not a pre-revolutionary Russian Downton Abbey full of plastic caricatures and robotic plotting. This is Chekhov, one of the greatest ever playwrights, at his most poignant and penetrating with a play that positively sears the senses.

The Loft deserves credit for staging it again after nearly 40 years. But it garners a great deal more for achieving a production which can stand with the very best of professional accomplishment. For director David Fletcher and a superbly performing ensemble company, this is a triumph.

They plunge headlong into the Chekhovian complexities of human existence, presenting a drama that is by turn relevant, sad, funny and revealing. Through the contrasting characters of the sisters, we learn the plight of the Prozorov family trapped in a provincial lifestyle far removed from their beloved Moscow.

For them nothing is real. Their world revolves around compromise, as does that of other townsfolk and army officers who are part of their lives. This challenging concept is shaped by a cast which intriguingly combines some of the Loft’s most seasoned actors with a group of eye-catching newcomers to the company.

Flora Garner as the youngest sister Irina has a fine innocence in her enjoyment of simple pleasures while pinpointing her ambition on one day returning to her own idea of an Emerald City. Emma Cooper is brisk and formidable and almost matriarchal as the oldest, Olga. Rachel Adams is a delightfully loud and audacious Masha. They are a splendidly impressive trio.

The play’s harsher truths and ironies are beautifully expressed by Jeremy Heynes as an alcoholic army doctor for whom dark cynicism underlines a jovial exterior. And there are lovely turns from Mark Crossley as Masha’s loving lapdog husband, all kindness and gentle humour, and Anne Wood in a touching portrayal of the aged household nanny who has outlived her value.

Others equally deserve praise, and if the director’s new version of the original play suffers a few longueurs in the first half, it blazes into life in the second.

The most significant fact is that a production of this calibre should be recognised far and wide.

To return to the page from which you came, click the button below.

Peter McGarry is an experienced, independent professional theatre critic who has agreed to review Loft Theatre Company productions.

The agreement with the Loft is that Peter is free to express his opinions for good or ill. The Loft Theatre Company has no control whatsoever over the content of these reviews and will never comment publicly on what he writes.