By Helen Musa
IN a winter season jam-packed with theatrical treats, Free Rain Theatre has taken on one of the giants ­– Chekhov’s play “Three Sisters.”
And, yes, the going is pretty tough. So much so, according to director Catherine Mann, that the looks on the actors’ faces during rehearsal say “this is really hard, but it’s really good.”
“Three Sisters,” written in 1900, is widely considered to be Chekhov’s “Hamlet,” his most enigmatic masterwork, and the most difficult of his plays to stage. 
It revolves around the lives and dreams of the Prozorovs, the three sisters (Olga, Masha, and Irina) and their brother Andrey. The sisters have grown up in Moscow, but have been living for 11 years in a small town.
Generations of undergraduate students have written essays on whether it’s a comedy or a tragedy, and that’s been causing Mann and her cast a few difficult moments.
Mann doesn’t shy away from this apparent conflict, saying “you could discuss it till the cows come home”, but on the positive side, there is the advantage of directing a play which, like many of Shakespeare’s, is a constant delight and challenge to any actor. 
And she has assembled quite a bunch.
As the three sisters stuck way out in the provinces, but longing for the big city, she has Lainie Hart as the hard-working Olga, Leah Baulch as the melancholy Masha and Alison MacGregor as the young idealist Irina. On the male side there is Duncan Ley as the lovesick Colonel Vershinin, Oliver Baudert as Chebutykin the doctor, Soren Jensen as the doomed Baron Tuzenbach and Duncan Driver as the vindictive Solyony. Add to the mixture Hannah Meredith, cast against type as the upstart sister-in-law Natasha, and you have a recipe for an intriguing night of acting.
As a director, Mann is pretty sure the reason that Chekhov is so popular with actors is that “the deeper you dig the more you find.”
Even if you are not doing much on stage, you know for certain that you’ve got your big moment, so you have to prepare for it – “just the way you do in life”.  That, of course, was exactly why Constantin Stanislavski had to come up with his famous acting method – he needed to find a way of preparing actors for Chekhov’s very different, very modern plays.
“Three Sisters” is about much more than the decay of the privileged class, it’s about the hopes and longings of ordinary people and that makes it very up-to-date.
“Three Sisters”, Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre, August 15-30.