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.
