Reza de Wet's Three Sisters Two investigates what happened to Olga, Masha, and Irina once Lenin banished upper-class inertia with demands for peace, bread, and land. As a white South African witnessing the gradual dissolution of apartheid, de Wet feels a certain empathy with the sisters, who are awakened to the poison of their privileges as their socio-political landscape undergoes a radical redesign.
It is 1920, the year Poland launched its semi-successful attack on the Bolshevik government. De Wet is unconcerned with such overt historical detail - she is far more intrigued in creating an echo-chamber of memories, fears and regrets that pays direct tribute both to Chekhov's Three Sisters and to his symbolic examination of social change in The Cherry Orchard.
The production opens in the old nursery of the Prozorov's house, where Andrey, the sisters' brother, is snoring like a bear who's been on a bender, while the family nurse sits in a haze of senile dementia. As the characters arrive on the elegantly shabby set, it emerges that Olga, Irina, and Andrey are waiting for Masha's return from Moscow, where her affair with the Red Army officer, Marovsky, has caused more sinister consequences than any of them anticipate.
South Africa has originated a number of this year's theatrical successes, yet while de Wet's writing is convincing, her development of Three Sisters gains little from its new historical setting. Instead the drama seems like the moon in comparison to Chekhov's sun - it ably reflects several of his themes, but generates little light that has not already emerged from his tightly constructed works.
In Auriol Smith's production, Belinda Lang delivers a glowing performance as Masha. Kim Thomson, however, struggles with Irina, who seems a pathetic reflection of Chekhov's determined yet deluded younger version.
The evening celebrates Chekhov's humanity, but Sam Walters's production of the master's own work is better value.
Three Sisters Two
