"Three Sisters Three Sisters Three Sisters Three Sisters Three Sisters Three Sisters"
Something there is in the major plays of- turn-of-the-20th-century
Russian playwright Anton Chekhov that has driven a number of later writers to
radically revise them for their times. Sometimes this done by shifting the action
to other eras and places, sometimes by simply (or not so simply) rewriting
them, even radically, in contemporary terms.
Rebecca Henderson, Tavi Gevinson, Chris Perfetti. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
| Tavi Gevinson, Rebecca Henderson, Chris Perfetti. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
One of the earliest Chekhov transformations by an American
playwright is Joshua Logan’s 1950 The Wisteria Trees, which considers The
Cherry Orchard as happening on a late 19th-century Louisiana plantation. So
many other unusual Chekhov variations followed, it would take pages to list
them.
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| Gene Jones, Greg Hildreth. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Just to cite those I recall being shown in mainstream New
York theatres during the past several years, there was a 2013 revival of British
dramatist Thomas Kilroy’s 1981 version of The
Seagull, relocated to West Ireland; the same year’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Christopher Durang’s hilarious take on Uncle
Vanya; Songbird,
a 2015 musical adaptation of The Seagull set in a honkytonk bar; Aaron
Posner’s 2016 Stupid
Fucking Bird, a reincarnation of The Seagull; and this year’s Life
Sucks, Posner’s still-running, well-regarded update of Uncle Vanya (which
I missed). There have also been several modern-dress, if somewhat less-revisionist,
Chekhov productions during the past half-dozen years.
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| Ryan Spahn, Tavi Gevinson. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
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| Alfredo Narcisco, Chris Perfetti. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
So, rather than let Chekhov’s
original (whatever that is) reflect those similarities, she’s been inspired to write
her own play, placing a select number of Three Sisters characters inside
a mashup of Chekhovian and contemporary Russia. The result is over-the-top farcical
zaniness, cartoonish behavior, oodles of profanity, simulated sex, frequent repetitions (like Trigorin’s references to his wife and children, or Kulygin’s to his teaching
Latin), and unexpected plot twists (like Tuzenbach's [Steven
Boyar] confession to Irina that he’s gay).
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| Steven Boyar, Matthew Jeffers. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
There’s also a deliberately
diverse cast, mingling white, black, Asian, and Latinx actors, not to mention having a little person as Solyony (Matthew Jeffers), and a wigless, crossdressing man play Masha (Chris Perfetti). The goal, not too dissimilar from the above-mentioned
approach to Chekhov’s subtext, is intended “to illustrate how universal this
story is,” as if the story itself can’t be trusted to do that on its own.
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| Company of Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
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| Rebecca Henderson, Chris Perfetti, Tavi Gevinson. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Paloma Young’s costumes, with their
selective mix of “period” and current fashions (like giving pink stilettos to
Natasha [Sas Goldberg] and a long, brass-buttoned, military coat to Trigorin [Alfredo
Narcisco]), create what looks more like a rehearsal than a fully produced performance.
The same blend of old and new, Russian and American, is conveyed in Darren
L. West’s sound score.
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| Company of Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Feiffer highlights the
characters’ loneliness, pain, and unhappiness, about which they are always
lamenting, by a variety of hopefully humorous techniques, in which she’s aided
and abetted by director Trip Cullman. Much of the humor is uncomfortably sophomoric,
though, like when someone sits on a whoopee cushion. There's nothing sloppy, though, about the performance. Everything is staged with
pinpoint timing, choral outbursts, outright stylization, and rhythmic precision. Neverthless, much is loud and obvious, while little is honestly human and emotionally affecting. Many in the rather youthful audience laughed; I cringed.
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| Greg Hildreth, Sas Goldberg. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Feiffer, who sticks close to
the original plot, notes that she “brought a lot of the subtext to the
forefront in an effort to heighten the pathos and catharsis with the
storytelling.” This implies that Chekhov’s ability to create “pathos and catharsis”
with his subtext is somehow faulty and needs an overhaul. For me, the effect, over 95 intermissionless
minutes, was comparable to an SNL sketch exceeding its welcome by 90 minutes
before the sisters march off to Moscow.
If you don’t know Three
Sisters, whose plot I’ve deliberately omitted, you’ll likely find Moscow
. . . meaningless. It’s the kind of thing only those familiar—even superficially—with
the original could love or hate, not so much for its innate qualities, but for
what it illuminates about its source. If you’re planning to see Feiffer, read
Chekhov first.
All the actors, including
Rebecca Henderson as Olga, Tavi Gevinson as Irina, Ako as Anfisa, Greg Hildreth
as Andrey, and Gene Jones as Ferapont, give it their best shot, doing high-quality
work with low-quality material.
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| Rebecca Henderson, Ako. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
The Robert W.
Wilson MCC Theater Space,
511 W. 52nd
St., NYC
Through August 17
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