NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE -- Turns out there is more to dysfunction than the purely familial. While few would deny there is a certain amount of familial dysfunction at the heart of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters, a new production by the Shaw Festival seems determined to explore both the breadth and the depth of other types of dysfunction as well.

First, there's a matter of dysfunctional language. In this new translation by Susan Coyne the characters speak in a strange mix of idioms. Most are more or less appropriate to the middle-class social circles of Czarist Russia in which the play is set. Others, however, are so patently contemporary as to be almost comical -- a "heck of a fire" indeed.

Then there is the matter of dysfunctional space. Designer Sue LePage would have us believe the three Prozorov sisters of the title -- Olga, played by Kelli Fox, Masha, by Tara Rosling, and Irina, by Caroline Cave -- share a house with their brother Andrei (Ben Carlson) that is spacious enough to host at least half of the Olympic events known to mankind. With the first act set in a parlour big enough for a hockey game and the second in a bedroom big enough for a bonspiel, it is small wonder the production never achieves the sense of small-town claustrophobia it needs to succeed on the most basic level.

Sadly, the problems don't stop there. In bringing this production to life, festival artistic director Jackie Maxwell and her extensive cast enjoy what is, at best, a mixed success.

Fox's Olga, for instance, is lovely but far from hidebound, while Rosling's Masha is played on a single note of hysteria, her illicit romance with Vershinin (Kevin Bundy) never generating enough light to make the game worth the candle.

Cave's Irina, meanwhile, seems to traverse the entire three-year span of the play -- and her ill-fated romance with Baron Tuzenbach (Jeff Meadows, looking far too good) -- largely unscathed. And Carlson's Andrei is such a lump from the get-go that one can almost forgive the philandering of his conniving wife, Natasha (Fiona Byrne in a delightful comedic turn).

There is other fine work here as well, not the least of which is to be found in strong performances from festival veterans David Schurmann (as an aging military doctor), Douglas E. Hughes (as Masha's long-suffering husband) and Jennifer Phipps and Richard Farrell (as loyal and often abused retainers).

It is thanks to them --and, of course, to the unassailable timelessness and tragedy of Chekhov's tale of dashed hopes -- that the production succeeds in the end.

And succeed it does finally, as even the most dysfunctional families often do.

But one is left with the lingering knowledge that things could have been so very much better.

IF YOU GO

What: Three Sisters, by Anton Chekhov, directed by Jackie Maxwell

When: Till Aug. 2

Where: Festival Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake

Tickets: $42-$77 (some discounts may apply); 1-800-511-7429 or www.shawfest.com

Rating: * * * (out of 5)