3 SISTERS ON HOPE STREET. To 29 March.
London.
3 SISTERS ON HOPE STREET
by Diane Samuels and Tracy-Ann Oberman after Anton Chekhov.
Hampstead Theatre To 29 March 2008.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Sat 3pm & 12 March 2.30pm.
Audio-described 22 March 3pm.
Captioned 25 March.
Post-show discussion 25 March.
Runs 2hr 55min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 7722 9301.
www.hampsteadtheatre.com
Review: timothy Ramsden 5 March.
New play rewardingly relocates Chekhov to post-war Merseyside.
Hope Street’s not only a post-war Liverpool Jewish quarter (and now home of the co-producing Everyman Theatre where this play opened). Its name also suggests the aspirations of the Lasky sisters, daughters of an American-Jewish family brought up in inter-war England. As family discontents boil in their pressure-cooker home, with memories of both dead parents emphasising how cut-off they are from New York, dreams of returning there interfuse with the idea of new life in Israel.
The hanging of two English soldiers there provokes anti-semitic riots, increasing insecurity in Liverpool. And American military from the nearby Burtonwood base disrupt two sisters’ emotional lives. Only Gertie (Chekhov’s Olga), organiser and manager, keeps a near-even keel; it’s no wonder she’s the one who still expresses hope at the end. Though this hope is qualified, a balm for hurt spirits: “Remember that wartime spirit. And we’ll see. We will see.”
What we see here is a rich sepia-toned portrait of life in a solid Liverpool Jewish home. US soldier Solly’s moroseness is informed by seeing the death-camps, Tush looks to find purpose by working on a kibbutz and those final sisterly hopes are offset not (as in Chekhov) by the old doctor’s fatalism but the ambiguity of brother Arnold and May/Masha’s unloved husband Mordy dealing with domestic practicalities of the next generation: pram-wheeling and toy-tidying.
Diane Samuels and Tracy-Ann Oberman have successfully given Chekhov’s play a new local habitation. It’s eye-opening, set in a culture with recognisable signposts (in the final act Nate complains about nationalisation). But the closeness has awkward moments (two soliloquies seem intrusive) and limitations.
May’s love for the strangely-distant Vince, who’s ultimately shoehorned rather suddenly into the kibbutz scheme, rightly, but noticeably, lacks Russian intensity. Auntie Bell, who promotes Chekhov’s servant into the family, seems strangely displaced by pushily insistent wife Debbie, but Jennie Stoller ensures her Jewish old-folks’ home sounds like the only Paradise on earth anyone actually achieves.
Lindsay Posner’s production combines focus on key events with the sense of life going on around the characters, in the home and the city beyond. Very Chekhovian, in fact.
Tush: Russell Bentley.
Arnold: Ben Caplan.
Gertie Lasky: Anna Francolini.
Mordy: Elliot Levey.
Debbie: Daisy Lewis.
Vince: Finbar Lynch.
Solly: Gerard Monaco.
Rita Lasky: Samantha Robinson.
May Lasky: Suzan Sylvester.
Auntie Bell: Jennie Stoller.
Nate: Philip Voss.
Director: Lindsay Posner.
Designer: Ruari Murchison.
Lighting: Peter Mumford.
Sound: Matt McKenzie for Autograph.
Music arranger: Jason Carr.
Voice/Dialect coach: Penny Dyer.
Associate lighting: Wayne Dowdeswell.
2008-03-06 09:36:05