He’s just not that into her…or he’s lost at sea

A dashing Sea Captain sweeps three sisters off their feet. He promises to return. Years pass. He never returns.

That is the essence of an old tale from Montenegro. As interpreted by Theatre Gigante, Three Other Sisters is haunting, familiar and tender. The production, which opened Thursday night, mirrors our own human tendencies toward longing and obsession.

The Sea Captain’s absence goes unexplained. The women wait by the window, rationalizing, negotiating, hypothesizing, growing old and, finally, dying. The Captain might be a metaphor for the sea of emotions that accompanies infatuation. Each sister, swept in the metaphorical rip tide, either lacked the strength and/or courage to get out of the grip, and drowned emotionally. When caught in a rip tide, you are to either swim parallel with the shore or let it carry you till you’re out of the current. In their case, they swam against it (and back into it) by constantly revisiting what they loved about him.

Isabelle Kralj, Janet Lilly and Simone Ferro filled every inch of the theater with a fluidity of emotion, intensity and longing. The ache was palpable in their movements and postures. They moved amid minimal — three windows, three chairs — and and terrific lighting that took them and us to another emotional space.

Slovenian music star Vlado Kreslin played the Sea Captain, made music between scenes, and was as a haunting fixed presence. He opened with a great cover of Bob Dylan’s Boots of Spanish Leather, which set the tone. Another highlight of the evening was the Bowie-esque Your Morning, near the conclusion. Percussionist Seth Warren-Crow provided an intuitive dimension to the music.

“Three Other Sisters” will be performed again on Friday and Saturday, March 12-13, at 8 p.m. In addition, Kreslin will give a solo concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 14^, at 3 p.m., all in the Off-Broadway Theater, in the Third Ward on the corner of St. Paul and Water Streets.