Look, Sturua seems to say, Russia’s greatest playwright sees his countrymen as dreamers, nihilists, dangerous romantics. In their provincial backwater the unmarried Olga (Vanessa), the badly married Masha (Lynn) and the not-to-be-married Irene (Jemma) live thwarted lives. They create an illusion of cultivated society with the Army officers who pass through the town, leaving spiritual desolation behind them. The Redgraves are stars who don’t do star turns; they are the key players in Chekhov’s symphony of lyrical hysteria. These sisters interlace like three wounded graces. At one point Jemma’s Irena sits down in an empty suitcase–a soul in transit to oblivion. With such touches Sturua fuses the comic and tragic. Some of his fuses blow, but most light up a masterpiece. This is a light that would electrify Broadway.
