Chekhov said it this way: “Any idiot can face a crisis. It’s day-to-day living that wears you out.”

New Village Arts Theatre in Carlsbad has a not-to-be-missed double bill illustrating the truth of this statement running in repertory through March 18: Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters and Beth Henley’s Crimes of the Heart.

Why these two plays? Artistic director Francis Gercke says he was struck by the similarities between the plays, written almost a century apart. Both feature three women of roughly the same age and psychological makeup, with approximately the same problems. In both cases, families commit little sins against each other – crimes of unkindness, insensitivity, thoughtlessness and sometimes worse.

New Village Arts is even running a contest: See both plays and count the similarities. The winner gets tickets to a later production, an invitation to the grand opening of the new space and dinner at a Carlsbad restaurant.

New Village Arts Theatre has accomplished the near impossible: It’s made a Chekhov play that is not only watchable, but enjoyable.

I’ve always regarded Chekhov as akin to cod liver oil: It’s good for you but utterly distasteful. All those droopy aristocrats kvetching about their decaying mansions and shrinking fortunes – how could anyone care?

But now Francis Gercke directs a Three Sisters that might make me change my mind. Using Irish playwright Brian Friel’s splendid musical translation, Gercke has assembled a powerhouse cast (including himself) which he directs with humor and sensitivity. The play runs through March 18 in repertory with Beth Henley’s Crimes of the Heart in the Studio Space at Jazzercise, New Village Arts’ temporary home in Carlsbad.

Chekhov’s beloved aristocracy is represented by 20-something sisters Olga (Kristianne Kurner), Masha (Jessica John) and Irina Prozorov (Amanda Sitton) – daughters of privilege born in Moscow, withering on the vine in the tiny provincial village to which their father moved them 11 years earlier. Lamenting that their extensive education and knowledge of many languages is wasted in this little Podunk, they pine for the urban excitement of the capital.

The eldest is Olga, a spinster who teaches without enthusiasm at a local school. Masha, married to ineffectual teacher Fyodor Kulygin (Manny Fernandes), has hoped for an exciting life; failing, she considers an affair with Colonel Vershinin (Gercke). The naive and hopeful 20-year-old Irina dreams of meeting her Prince Charming in Moscow.

The sisters encourage the actions of younger brother Andrey (Tom Zohar), a student of whom an academic career is expected. Instead, he falls in love with the crude, undereducated Natasha (Wendy Waddell), bossy and grasping, who moves quickly to take over the family house. Meanwhile, Andrey quits his studies and takes up gambling. When the military regiment is pulled from the town, there will be almost no one around to talk to other than the servants (wonderfully played by June Gottleib and Jack Missett) and old Dr. Chebutykin (played by the redoubtable Ron Choularton).

The sisters, as most of the major characters in Chekhov’s plays, are trapped in their own inertia, bogged down in the absurdity of life and the futility of the search for meaning. But, as Olga says, “We are going to go on living … and it seems that in a little while we will know the reason we live and suffer. If only we knew!”

This is a stunning production in every way. Kristianne Kurner’s set is terrific and admirably suggestive of a much bigger playing space; Jessica John came up with fab costume designs and Gercke’s crisp direction plays up both the humor and the pathos. There isn’t a weak acting link in the bunch – hardly surprising, since this group represents a good proportion of the city’s finest acting talent.

Three Sisters plays through March 18 in repertory with Beth Henley’s Crimes of the Heart. For tickets, call (760) 433-3245 or check schedule and reserve tickets online at www.newvillagearts.org/crimes_sisters_dates.php.

Lenny MaGrath (Kristianne Kurner) is having a “real bad day” in Hazlewood, Miss., in more ways than one. She’s alone and no one has remembered her birthday. She sticks a birthday candle into a cookie, which breaks. In the middle of another try, her insufferable, social-climbing cousin Chick (Wendy Waddell) shows up with trash talk about the family and a box of chocolates from last Christmas. But at least she remembered and is grateful for the panty hose Lenny has brought from the store.

Lenny’s birthday is just the tip of this bad-day iceberg. Lenny’s youngest sister Babe (Amanda Sitton) has shot her husband in the stomach. He is now in the hospital and Babe is about to be arrested. Their impulsive middle sister Meg (Jessica John), who took off for Hollywood in pursuit of a singing career, has been contacted but so far has failed to call. Granddaddy, who brought the girls up after their mother hanged herself and her pet cat, is in the hospital recovering from a stroke. Lenny’s 20-year-old horse, Billy Boy, has just died from being struck by lightening.

Beth Henley’s Crimes of the Heart plays in repertory with Chekhov’s Three Sisters through March 18 at New Village Arts Theatre’s temporary digs in Carlsbad. Dana Case directs Crimes of the Heart.

The MaGraths are a family like any other – only more so. The sisters are recognizable types: Lenny is the responsible one, sexually repressed because of a “shrunken ovary,” which has convinced her no man would ever be interested; Meg is the typical bad girl who has had “too many men” and exhibits too little responsible behavior; Babe, the youngest, pushed into a socially approved marriage to the town’s most prominent lawyer, has shot him because “I didn’t like his looks.” Babe also harbors a secret of her own.

When Meg blows in from Tinseltown, old family grudges are resurrected. Lenny still resents the fact that Meg was the favored one who “never made good grades … never made her own bed” and got to put 12 jingle bells on her Christmas dress while Lenny and Babe had to be content with three each. Lenny also has the indelicacy to mention Meg’s irresponsible behavior during Hurricane Camille that resulted in a permanent limp for boyfriend Doc Porter and his subsequent decision not to attend medical school.

Competition and sabotage are common among sisters. The MaGraths (and the patronizing Chick) can insult, yell and be hurtful, but eventually they cry, hug and console each other in this Pulitzer Prize-winning play (Henley’s first full-length effort, it was the first play to win a Pulitzer without a previous Broadway run). They are brilliantly aided by Daren Scott as Babe’s young attorney, Barnett Lloyd, and Francis Gercke as Doc Porter.

This is a Crimes for the ages; I’ll even go out on a limb and say there will never be a better production of this play. Kudos to Case for crisp direction and to every cast member for bringing these characters to vibrant life with accent, facial expressions and nonpareil timing. Crimes of the Heart will both tug at your heart and make you laugh. Most of all, it will make you glad you had the sense to spend an evening with the MaGrath girls.

Crimes of the Heart plays through March 18 in repertory with Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters. For tickets, call (760) 433-3245 or check schedule and reserve tickets online at www.newvillagearts.org/crimes_sisters_dates.php.