Theatre review: La Musica

At the start of their marriage Michel (Sam Troughton) and Anne-Marie (Emily Barclay) spent three months living in a hotel room, while they waited for their home to be built. They return to the hotel, or at least to its otherwise empty bar, on the last night of their marriage: Having both been unfaithful they ended up getting divorced, a protracted process that's gone on for three years. They've met again after all that time on the eve of signing the decree absolute as well as, ostensibly, to discuss what to do with a few last pieces of furniture and boxes of books. In reality what they want to do is pick at old wounds, as Marguerite Duras' La Musica is essentially a post-mortem on a failed relationship.

Theatre review: Three Sisters

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: Three Sisters invites the official critics in tomorrow night.

Still in previews it may be, but Benedict Andrews' take (he both adapts and directs) on Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters already seems to be causing some pretty heated debate, judging by the reaction I've seen on Twitter over the last couple of nights. Having now seen the production myself, I must admit I'm a bit baffled as to why it's been quite such a love/hate affair. Still set in Russia but relocated to the present day, the three sisters of the title live comfortable but unfulfilling lives in a small, remote town, notable only for the army regiment stationed there. Longing for a return to Moscow, where they grew up, theirs is a story of disappointment at every turn, as their plans are thwarted, love turns out not to be anything like the books and movies say it is, and it looks like their lives are stuck in a dead end before they're even out of their twenties.