A 'Three Sisters' that sneaks up on you

At the outset, the new Arden Theatre production of the Anton Chekhov classic Three Sisters leads you by the hand, with actors in modern dress reading stage directions and scene settings as well as dialogue. The implied assurance is that nobody will get lost in the tangled web of relationships in this story of stifled provincial lives and a family that longs for sweetness but may not know what that is or how to create it.

In fact, the production by Arden artistic director Terrence J. Nolen begins in a plain rehearsal room with a video camera allowing close-ups of actors who will be your company for the next three hours or so. Folksy Russian-music interludes recall Pig Iron Theatre's recent Balkan-tinged Twelfth Night, easing you into the world of a 19th-century garrison town.

The production then morphs into something fairly traditional and rather devastating - unexpectedly so amid a production that seems to encourage viewers to maintain a safe distance. Somehow, this Three Sisters insinuates itself through the side door.

Cosmetically speaking, the actors are cast in roles physically at odds with how the text describes them. Though Dr. Chebutikin describes himself as on the verge of retirement, actor Scott Greer hardly even seems to be middle-aged. Though Baron Tuzenbach is described as ugly, James Ijames is quite presentable.

Anachronisms don't seem so out of place in Curt Columbus' colloquial adaptation (and they allowed you to hear the text with some Brechtian objectivity). Luigi Sottile as the feckless Andre looks like a John Lennon impersonator. Russian-music interludes employ modern rock guitar. At one point, we hear the ukulele tune "Little Coquette," a Guy Lombardo hit of the 1920s.

The three sisters themselves - Katharine Powell as Masha, Sarah Sanford as Olga, and Mary Tuomanen as Irina - looked age- and period-appropriate most of the time, all of them beautifully differentiated and thoughtfully characterized. Several other actors, from Ian Merrill Peakes (Vershinin) to Louis Lippa (Ferapont), played it straight, and well.

The sets by Eugene Lee helped chart the progression: The opening scene was stark even by rehearsal-room standards. The final scene was wonderfully atmospheric, with the family mansion in the distance and the birch trees already bare as another winter arrives and the garrison's soldiers depart, never to come back.

Even so, the production is hardly for Chekhov connoisseurs, and seemed to gently apologize for the play, as though Chekhov needed a bit more oomph for American audiences than it innately has. So painfully human are the characters that this simply isn't necessary. Physical humor added strictly for laughs played false, partly because these characters are portraits of repression, and are largely dedicated to maintaining their poise under impossible circumstances.

Though extremely pleasant to hear, the music (composer James Sugg did the adapting) didn't really support the play and encourages actors such as Greer (who was also part of the music ensemble) to be overbearing, even hammy, when returning to his character. (His Act III monologue, though, was mesmerizing.)

So what allowed the final half-hour to be so devastating? The production's eccentricities lowered your guard, and the final scenes contained considerable feats of acting, as hopes were dashed by village fires and duels in which the wrong person died.

And when the sisters retreated to their fragile faith in the importance of existence, what sometimes seems like a pasted-on happy ending instead was an inevitability.

Through April 20 at the Arden Theatre Company, 40 N 2d St.

Tickets: $36-$48.

Information: 215-922-1122 or www.ardentheatre.org.EndText