Three Sisters review: An absorbing start to Chekhov reinterpretation but feels overlong

One of last year’s unexpected hits was a bold reimagining of Tennessee Williams’s neglected Summer and Smoke, anchored by a devastating Patsy Ferran. Now, fresh from her recent Olivier Award for that performance, she’s reunited with the production’s director Rebecca Frecknall, who’s herself a rising star.

This new collaboration has some of the same qualities, above all a confidently lean staging and moments of quivering intensity. Ferran is again addictively watchable, this time as Olga, the most pragmatic of the isolated sisters portrayed in Anton Chekhov’s classic play — tough and rational, yet wistful too.

Chekhov depicts youthful hope crushed by work and the burden of responsibility. The three sisters, exiled in a remote Russian town, long to return to Moscow, and in 29-year-old Cordelia Lynn’s version they seem like angsty millennials — easily dismissed as self-obsessed, but deeply concerned about their position in the world.

There are intriguing performances around Ferran, notably from Pearl Chanda as moody middle sister Masha, who recoils from the fussy dullness of her husband Fyodor (an enjoyably quirky Elliot Levey) and falls for Peter McDonald’s talkative artillery commander Vershinin.

As the youngest sister, Irina, Ria Zmitrowicz projects the fire and dreaminess of adolescence. In smaller roles Shubham Saraf and Alan Williams make a strong impression, and the sisters’ reckless brother Andrey (Freddie Meredith) memorably spends a lot of time marooned on a shelf to one side of the stage, disconnected from events yet able to observe and influence them.

But this take on the play, while at first absorbing, feels overlong. Several key relationships lack a vital spark, and Lynn seems torn between respect for Chekhov and the only half-indulged urge to reinterpret his voice in a bracingly modern style.

Until June 1 (020 7359 4404, almeida.co.uk)