Fear not as I walked into a small intimate studio theatre surrounded by many windows of all different sizes but similar designs with a table and two chairs placed centre stage. I almost felt like the cafe was not big enough to accommodate the amount of us in the audience.
Enter Sonya with a few books, papers other miscellaneous stationary items and of course her satchel and takes a seat scribbling notes. So I instantly thought oh dear there's going to be many unecessary silences during this play. However I was proven wrong when Andrey enters with a bowl of cabbage soup, bread and a violin accompanied with great energy and remembers Sonya from the previous night they both chatted in the cafe. Bam! The play has begun, all within 3/4 minutes of it starting.
As the play progresses you almost become attracted to Andrey; simply out of pity as he really lives in an artificial world but everything he says is for good cause as that's the man he has always wanted to be. He boasts to Sonya about playing in the orchestra for La Boheme while sitting with his violin and explaining how musicians have to do certain exercises to aid their posture. We become attracted to Sonya purely for her charming naivety she displays while Andrey entertains her with his small fables and when he exits, her sneaky ways of smuggling out her secret bottle of Gin.
Watching two people in a cafe on stage made me feel very nosey as it did very much feel like I was intruding on their conversation as they kept it as naturalistic as possible with yet some fantastic organic comedic moments dropped in.
I must admit I was very surprised how funny the play was as I know Three Sisters very well and that is not funny at all rather the opposite not to mention Andrey's character is not amusing nor very interesting. I can only think he was not in good company and possibly his sisters and wife had much bigger personalities hence his lack of confidence. Sonya also is very funny but you expect it from her as she does have a certain aroma of charm about her and this heightens throughout the play especially the more Gin she consumes while later sharing it with Andrey.
The ending of the play was a surprise as throughout the play we are very intrigued to see how this relationship develops but I will say no more as do not want to give all the good bits away! One could also argue that the ending is very open so your not dissapointed. Either way it's worth going to see but if you prefer musicals and all that Jazz then I wouldn't recommend.
A massive pat of the back to Niamh Cusack and Sean Gallagher for a fantastic 5* naturalistic performance. Stanislavsky would be most pleased!
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