At APT Chekhov's 'Three Sisters' are growing up and going out of style

By Lindsay Christians, The Capital Times

August 14, 2017

SPRING GREEN — Everybody loves Irina.

In the new production of Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” up the hill at American Players Theatre, it’s easy to see why. The play opens on her name day (like a birthday) and Irina looks buoyant.

Through a break in the stage that feels like peering into a painting, we see Irina’s sister and a maid gathering flowers. Irina herself is dressed in white; she alights near the old country doctor as he fusses over her, then stares dreamily up at the clouds.

“It’s as if my sails are all spread,” she says. “Above me is the wide blue heaven and large white birds are flying in it.”

Sadly, naïve Irina has the misfortune to be a Chekhov heroine, which means her delighted mood has an expiration date.

William Brown directs an emotionally dense, heart-wrenching production of Chekhov’s domestic drama, moved forward in time to shortly before the Russian Revolution.

With characters paralyzed by inertia, the pacing can feel slow, the staging static. These idle philosophers talk endlessly of Moscow but, like Beckett's tramps, do not move. They marinate in boredom. They repeat themselves in self-defense (“I’m content, I’m content, I’m content”).

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