Polish director Krystian Lupa's ultra-modernist adaptation accounts for the production's magnificent first-half highs as well as its sagging second act. Lupa, working in America for the first time, creates a sense of despair and existential angst that embraces Beckett and even recalls Jean-Paul Sartre's ''No Exit," which happens to be next up at the ART.
For the first half, at least, the ennui is exhilarating because Lupa's stagecraft is extraordinary. Most of the action takes place in a sprawling living room with a couple of divans, a piano, and peeling paint on the wall. In a back room separated by a scrim is a large banquet table and a stairway. Olga and Irina Prozorov live there with their brother, servant, and sister-in-law, but also rent out rooms and otherwise play host to the military men in town. The third sister, Masha, lives nearby with her ineffectual husband.
Lupa not only directed, but designed the set and serves as live drummer through Tuesday. The drumbeats give the play a pulse, underscoring actions and breaking silences -- and the many silences are indeed golden.
The drumming and other production devices are constant reminders that while the play seems to be naturalistic, there are metaphorical and metaphysical undercurrents everywhere. A thin red neon strip around the stage reframes the room in a way that makes us look at the characters differently. The always meticulous work of lighting designer Scott Zielinski and sound designer David Remedios adds nuances to the action.
The director has also provided his own take on the late Paul Schmidt's already conversational and deromanticized translation of ''Three Sisters." The contemporary style of speech and action suggests a breadth of motivation that spans the century since the play was written. The characters may be stuck in a rut, but they're not stuck in late 19th-century Russia, as they are in so many stilted productions of Chekhov.
