'Three Sisters' at the Piven Theatre Workshop: Lovely moments, but sisters' lives left in pieces
THEATER REVIEW: "Three Sisters" ★★½ Through Nov. 21 at the Piven Theatre Workshop, 927 Noyes St., Evanston; Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes; Tickets: $25 at 847-866-8049 or www.piventheatre.org
If you're of the view that the great human drama of Anton Chekhov is best viewed through a comedic lens, you won't care much for the Piven Theatre Workshop's new production of “Three Sisters,” which does not pack many giggles. From the first moment, when lights rise on Joanne Underwood's emotionally wrought Olga, one senses one is in for a throbbing and very serious kind of theatrical experience.
And so it goes all night. In Evanston, the sisters are in defiant, irony-free mode.
It goes with some interest. The famous Joyce Piven, of the Piven Theatre Workshop, is, of course, at her best deep inside the actors' studio, and she works with some skilled and accessible actors here to forge a number of scenes that expose the pain of human ennui. In very intimate surroundings — 14 actors pack the playing area.