Especially when the actors are making the programming decisions, black-box Chicago Chekhovs are best approached with trepidation. All too often, their existence is dependent on an ill-suited someone who always wanted to play a Sonya or a Lopakin, and is grabbing the one and only chance of essaying such a canonical role, sans either a clear rationale or some palpable regard for the needs or pleasure of an audience.

The Strawdog Theatre's diminutive but intensely appealing "Three Sisters" is an entirely different beast.

For one thing, this is the world premiere of another of Curt Columbus' unfussy and theatrically adept new Chekhov translations (his version of "The Cherry Orchard" was directed by Tina Landau at the Steppenwolf Theatre last season). If you've not had the pleasure hitherto, these fresh, no-nonsense (and strikingly non-impositional) Midwestern takes on the musings of Comrade Ennui are well worth seeing.

For another, this show is populated by a cast of intensely experienced actors. That collective experience might not all have been gained at the flashier theaters in town, but this is a deep-seated, ensemble-oriented group of off-Loop stalwarts with plenty of lines of experience on their faces and a refreshing disdain for fakery and nonsense.

But the most rewarding thing of all about this surprising little show is that the capable young director Kimberly Senior and her designer, Brian Sidney Bembridge, don't try to deny their surroundings (located above a convenience store, Strawdog is a weirdly shaped, second-floor black box).

Instead they fit their Chekhov to their situation, staging the show so that it flows organically around corners, behind columns, in-between the seats, halfway to the dressing room. Most of the time, we have to lean or peer to find out what one of the poor Prozorov sisters is up to, lending the whole affair an intriguing sense of voyeurism and even heightening the realism.

There's far more smoldering sexual energy in the house than in most "Three Sisters," partly because the translation allows for that, partly because the actors actually are the right age, and partly because Senior knows how to dial up the tension.

This is, after all, a garrison town in the hinterlands. Strawdog's old wooden floors fit that bill. And if ever there was a "Three Sisters" that thoroughly removed itself from urban sophistication -- and its kissing-cousin, pretentious theater -- this is the one.

Several performances are exceptionally strong, most notably Kat McDonnell's wry but credible Masha and Abigail Boucher's emotionally resonant Irina.

But there's real depth to this cast -- the mature likes of Patricia Donegan and Peter Davis are there to deepen the show at its edges. It's quite the composite.

Sure, we could lose 10 minutes from a running time pushing three hours.

And there's a palpable sag in energy after intermission. But there are enough moments of revelation here to keep one's attention, and sufficient craft to make one marvel anew at how this city -- and, it seems, only this city -- can come up with shows like this with places like this.