As soon as the stage lights go on in the small house of the Staatstheater Wiesbaden, one suspects that there will be no break with Chekhov's viewing habits in Uwe Eric Laufenberg's production of "Three Sisters".

Because on the walls in Rolf Glittenberg's deep, unified stage space with a few pieces of seating furniture on the sides, the notorious birches announce that we are taking part in the familiar, dreary Russian country life and that in the next three and a half hours the longing of the three main characters will be transferred to us: to Moscow!

And yet you don't mind watching the effectively arranged tableau of figures until the break.

Sometimes a dialogue at the front of the ramp, a three-way conversation at the window, a group picture with almost the entire ensemble at the back at the dining table.

That passes without surprises, solid state theater fare.

But then, right after the break, an unexpected low blow, the farm turns into a bunker.

People lie on mattresses, mothers cover their children's ears while explosions, sirens, machine gun fire can be heard from outside.

A moment to be ashamed of others, because nothing, absolutely nothing in Chekhov's funny-sad human dramas and also nothing in Laufenberg's unexcited production calls for this clumsy topicality club.

The great fire in the town

It is all the more irritating as Laufenberg approaches his characters over long stretches with a great deal of sensitivity for nuances and for the abysses hidden between the lines and, if you look at the horribly worn out and predictable bursts of desperation of Mascha, Irina and Olga as a means of expression (Mira Benser, Lina Habicht, Lena Hilsdorf) from, especially in the quiet tones.

This is particularly noticeable in the case of Kulygin, a man you don't want to be married to, but whose emotional and intellectual emptiness Christian Klishat turns into a moving showpiece.

His defiant insistence on being happy and having a wonderful wife is no less heartwarming in its quiet dullness than Masha's howled despair,

when her only consolation for life Werschinin (Matze Vogel) is transferred together with the regiment and she sees her future as Kulygin's wife buried alive.

Vershinin himself, too, with his empty stares and the mutely endured suffering of his marriage, is touching with his sad, empty philosophizing.

The mix doesn't work

In addition to these convincing characters, which include the sisters as well as Baron Tusenbach (Christoph Kohlbacher), Laufenberg also allows himself to be downright disturbing in his platitude in reaching into his clothes box.

Brother Andrej (Paul Simon) with his tangled hair is the caricature of the failed academic right from the start, and when he ends up criss-crossing the stage with a big pram, you can only smile.

And Christina Tzatzaraki, as his domineering wife Natalja Ivanovna, uncomplainingly accepts the fate of miming the most unsympathetic character in the play and gives the cold-hearted, calculating petit bourgeois with plenty of grease.

Likewise Uwe Kraus as regimental doctor Chebutykin,

who, with his weary "It doesn't matter anyway" sottises and plenty of drunken vacillation, is at least something of a commentator on the sadness surrounding him.

It has often been remarked that the melancholy, melancholy reading that has become the norm for Chekhov productions in this country does not do justice to the many comic parts of the text.

This may have encouraged Laufenberg to heave strange blocks of humor into the tender sadness again and again, culminating in a saber dance that one urgently wishes was meant to be ironic.

But the mix doesn't work, the comic only acts as a disturbing foreign body.

which has become commonplace for Chekhov productions in this country, does not do justice to the many comic parts of the text.

This may have encouraged Laufenberg to heave strange blocks of humor into the tender sadness again and again, culminating in a saber dance that one urgently wishes was meant to be ironic.

But the mix doesn't work, the comic only acts as a disturbing foreign body.

which has become commonplace for Chekhov productions in this country, does not do justice to the many comic parts of the text.

This may have encouraged Laufenberg to heave strange blocks of humor into the tender sadness again and again, culminating in a saber dance that one urgently wishes was meant to be ironic.

But the mix doesn't work, the comic only acts as a disturbing foreign body.

Why do you look at it, why do you do it, for more than three hours?

In successful productions one forgets the question, although one is the guest of exhaustingly dull people.

In the bad ones one may use the break to escape.

At Halbgaren as in Wiesbaden, something captivating flashes every now and then, you are touched and yet immediately pushed back by the well-groomed and exhibited Ennui, until you are completely one with the boredom spinning in circles on stage.

Three Sisters at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Christian-Zais-Strasse 3. The next performances are on May 4th, 5th and 6th from 7:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.