Culture > Arts
by Adam Green
Photo: Joan Marcus
When a character in a Chekhov play gazes longingly out the window in the first scene and says, "I hope everything will work out," it's a pretty safe bet that more than a few hopes will be dashed before the curtain falls. There is nothing disappointing, however, about the production of Three Sisters that opened last night at the Classic Stage Company. The onstage presence of Maggie Gyllenhaal and her offstage husband, Peter Sarsgaard, as star-crossed lovers may give the proceedings a frisson of A-list glam, but it is the deeply felt acting of the entire cast and the tender, intimate staging by Austin Pendleton that make this Three Sisters so affecting, capturing Chekhov's vision of a life in which the comic and the tragic are one and the same.
Set in a garrison town in the Russian provinces, the play follows the ebbing fortunes of the titular siblings and the soldiers, servants, and sidekicks who gather at their house, whose inhabitants also include their weak-willed brother, Andrey (Josh Hamilton), and his maniacally arriviste bride, Natasha (Marin Ireland). As Masha, the middle sister, Gyllenhaal embodies the heartbreak of a bright young woman turned sardonic by the confines of her provincial existence and unhappy marriage. Jessica Hecht conveys haunted resignation as the schoolmarm oldest sister, Olga, and Juliet Rylance captures the dwindling hopefulness of the 24-year-old Irina, who comes to understand that "time passes and you realize that you'll never have the beautiful life you dreamed of."
The mood was decidedly less gloomy at the party after the performance, where guests included a rakishly unshaven Jake Gyllenhaal, who had come on his own to cheer on his sister; a gamine-looking Carey Mulligan; and the wonderful young actress Nina Arianda, who on the heels of her sexy comic turn in last season's Venus in Fur makes her Broadway debut this spring in a revival of Born Yesterday. Maggie Gyllenhaal seemed unusually radiant, particularly for an actress who had just been onstage weeping over her lost chance for love. "I get to have a big emotional breakdown at the end, which is totally cathartic and gets rid of all the pent-up anger and despair that's been building throughout the play," she explained. "By the time I leave the theater, I'm like, Wow—I feel so refreshed!"