Review: AFTER THREE SISTERS, Brockley Jack Studio Theatre, 21 October 2016

Anton Chekhov provides the inspiration for After Three Sisters, Neil Smith's telling of the story playing out in Moscow 1905 and London 2011. If that sounds a bit too tricksy, well, it is, for all of the quick changes, clever lighting and focused acting. It's a big challenge to pull it off and Living Record's production isn't quite up to it.

In Moscow, the people are rising to confront the Tsar's callous rule, while Irina lies abed, recovering from a suicide attempt and her sisters, matriarchal Olga and disappointed-in-love Masha, wonder what to do about it all. There's Nikolai too, earnest and decent, but just a bit dull (for all of his revolutionary fervour) to catch a sister's eye.

The same actors are catapulted 106 years forward in time to play three Russian sisters in 21st century London (who share the same names, of course). Olga is studying to be a teacher, Masha enjoying life as a sex worker and Irina is drawn to both opportunities, the eyes bright with the thrills and attention men will bring, but also often buried in a book of Russian history. Jamie, one of Masha's regulars and a man simmering with anger and violence for all his glossy exterior, repels and attracts the three siblings - but he has his own axe to grind.

It's ambitious for sure and there's plenty of good work on stage that goes some way towards pulling it off. Jill Rutland successfully flip-flops between the stillness of Moscow Masha and sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll of London Masha, with just a coat to mark the change. Violet Patton-Ryder speaks as beautifully as she looks, so making it a bit of a stretch to believe that Olga would be so short of suitors that she would fall so easily for the hackneyed patter of bad boy Jamie - Luke Barton, silver-tongued and duplicitous. Sarah Cullum's Irina is a compelling presence, unhinged at times in both timeframes and terribly vulnerable, needy for the love that left her life when her parents died.

The emotional instability is matched by the social and political turmoil against which the stories play out - Moscow's insurrection of 1905 would return stronger in 1917: does London's burning and looting of 2011 presage revolution in 2023? Such an argument was alluded to rather than made, a little unsatisfactorily.

The same criticism of unwanted vagueness might be levelled at the sisters too. The jumping forwards and backwards in time irritatingly took us out of one narrative into another just as we began to get a grip on the complexities of the sisters' relationships. Consequently, we never quite got to care about either trio sufficiently - the tricksiness overpowered the plot - and I was left wondering what the sisters shared across the century, apart from names, nationality and unhappiness. It was Tolstoy rather than Chekhov that came to mind when I pondered this point - ""All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." That gulf of difference was never bridged.

After Three Sisters continues at the Brockley Jack Studio Theatre until 5 November.

Photo Hannah Ellis.

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