Three Sisters

Coarseness is a cardinal offense in—and of—Classical Theatre of Harlem’s laborious revival of Chekhov’s Three Sisters. The women of the title have refined sensibilities; having once lived in cultured, sophisticated Moscow, they now feel crushed by the vulgarity of a dull, one--horsedrawn-carriage town. Christopher McElroen’s blobby production of the play is not, shall we say, Moscow-ready: What should be theater about a community comes off as community theater.

Sabrina LeBeauf plays Olga, the spinster schoolteacher; Amanda Mason Warren is the moody Masha; and Carmen Gill is the dreamy Irina. They have moments here and there (Warren when she is being emotional, Gill when she isn’t), as do Reg E. Cathey as the dissolute doctor and especially Josh Tyson as the kindly baron. But small moments of credibility can’t compensate for the production’s gallery of slapdash portraits. Daphne Gaines plays the arriviste Natasha on a single string of cartoonish haughtiness; Jonathan Earl Peck turns Masha’s gentle husband into a vain, smug buffoon; Phillip Christian makes the awkward Solyony into a psycho creep. And Roger Guenveur Smith (so good in A Huey P. Newton Story) gives an awful performance as Masha’s military lover, deploying a strange accent and arbitrary, Shatneresque pauses.

One can only imagine the headache that all this phoniness would have given poor, sensitive Olga. But even those with rougher standards may strain their eyes with rolling. —Adam Feldman

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