This excellently acted ‘Three Sisters’ doesn’t always connect

Three Sisters

Adapted and directed by Paolo Santalucia, after the play by Anton Chekhov. At Hart House Theatre, 7 Hart House Circle, through Nov. 13. Tickets at harthouse.ca/theatre or 416-978-2452

Location, location, location. Real estate is all about it and often theatre is, too.

The female siblings at the centre of Anton Chekhov’s 1901 play were reared in Moscow but are now stuck in a provincial town where their late father was posted as an army officer. They’re restless, bored and longing for the big city, but numerous forces — economic, social, relational, psychological — keep them from returning.

Director/writer Paolo Santalucia’s new version of the play is set in the present day and, accents indicate, somewhere in North America. Here, the sisters don’t long for Moscow; they long for “home.” While keeping that reference general is on the one hand understandable (you can imagine how “I dream of Toronto every night” could become an unintended laugh line), the lack of grounded specificity does not end up serving the play.

Another key aspect that holds Santalucia’s staging back is its physical location in the cavernous Hart House Theatre (the production is part of a yearlong partnership between the independent Howland Company and Hart House, an experiential education centre at the University of Toronto). While the excellent acting company does a good job in projecting their voices and characterizations into the auditorium, the raised stage puts emotional and psychological distance between actors and audience that reduced my capacity to engage with their relationships and struggles.

One element that’s an unmitigated success is Robert Persichini’s performance as the older family friend Ivan (Chebutykin in the original). Persichini’s vocal, physical and emotional presence is extraordinary and his masterful work delivering a complex character — a philosophical alcoholic whose deep affection for the sisters just about keeps his life on the rails — commands the theatre.

When we first meet the sisters, they’re lolling about on the birthday of the youngest, Irina (Shauna Thompson), as she recalls past happiness. Eldest Olga (Hallie Seline), a schoolteacher, is grading papers, recalling their father’s funeral and missing home; and the middle sister, Masha (Caroline Toal), is reading a book and fighting the blues.

Here and throughout, these central actors give believable performances and make a credible family unit, along with their undermotivated brother Andrei (Ben Yoganathan), his grasping wife, Natasha (Ruth Goodwin), and Dan Mousseau (stepping in for an ailing Colin A. Doyle at the opening performance) as Masha’s lovably awkward schoolteacher husband, Theo. That said, I found myself unable to fully engage and sympathize with the characters because we learn very little about the grounded circumstances in their lives and environment. Without context, the family’s misery seems undermotivated and sometimes makes them come across as entitled.

During that first scene, there’s a group of men sitting on the other side of Nancy Anne Perrin’s split-level set bantering and gossiping; because everyone is wearing civvies it’s not initially clear who they are. In fact, this is a military town with not a lot going on and the men, mostly soldiers, have become fixtures in the family’s lives, not least because a number of them are angling for Irina’s affections.

One of the successful innovations of Santalucia’s version is that the married military officer Vershinin is female: Christine Horne brings her characteristic intensity and luminosity to the role, and the growing passion between her and Toal’s Masha is gripping.

This deviation from Chekhov’s text updates the play in a refreshing way, but at other points the version suffers from excessive fidelity to the original. While Cameron Laurie is excellent as Irina’s earnest suitor Nicolas, I snagged on the plot point that he got his position as a military officer through family privilege (does that really happen anymore?). And a final tragic twist is undermined by the datedness of the form of conflict that causes it.

Such concerns are surmounted in a scene two-thirds of the way through the show, as the sisters, exhausted after helping the community respond to a fire, come close to despair and commiserate with each other. The strength of their acting and emotional commitment as well as the audience’s familiarity with their situation combine to create a very moving episode, enhanced by a heartbreakingly convincing drunken monologue by Ivan.

Other concerns aside, Persichini’s performance alone is enough to recommend this show.

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