The Three Sisters
by Mary Moody Northen Theatre
Nov. 13 - Nov. 23, 2008
Wikipedia: Three Sisters (Russian: Три сeстры, translit. Tri sestry) is a play by the Russian author and playwright Anton Chekhov, perhaps partially inspired by the situation of the three Brontë sisters.[1] It was written in 1900 and first performed in 1901 at the Moscow Art Theatre. The play is sometimes included on the short list of Chekhov's outstanding plays, along with The Seagull and Uncle Vanya.[2]
From Theatre database: A year after the death of their father, an army officer, the Moscow-bred sisters Prosorov--Olga, Masha and Irina--are finding life drab and increasingly hopeless in a Russian provincial town. Only the proximity of a nearby artillery post and the company of its officers make their existence bearable.
Olga, the eldest, twenty-eight, is a teacher at the high school; she finds her work hateful, and herself already aging and tired, her dream of a happy marriage fading; she is sustained solely by the hope of selling the house and returning to Moscow. Masha, little more than twenty, is married to Kuligan, a teacher of far more years who has not lived up to the stature her school-girl mind had given him. For her there is no hope of Moscow; she only whistles softly to herself as her sisters make their plans. Irina, at twenty, dreams of finding happiness and love in Moscow. A brother, Andrey, a scholar, is in love with Natasha, twenty-eight, an overdressed villager who affects shyness and humility; his sisters find it hard to believe that he will marry her.
On Irina's birthday, the callers include Chebutikin, sixty, an army doctor who once loved the sisters' mother; Baron Tuzenbach, thirty, a lieutenant in love with Irina; brooding Captain Soleni, and a newcomer, Vershinin, forty-two, commander of the post. Vershinin has two daughters and a second wife who frequently threatens suicide to annoy him. A birthday cake is sent by Protopopov, head of the District Council. The sisters hope Protopopov will marry Natasha, but Andrey proposes to her and she accepts him.
With the marriage of Natasha and Andrey and the birth of a child, Bobby, the lot of the sisters becomes even more unhappy. Natasha, dropping her humility, dominates the sisters, her husband and the servants. She takes the room of Irina, who now works at the telegraph office, for the child; Irina must share Olga's room. (click to view full synopsis)
The Three Sisters
by Anton Chekhov
Mary Moody Northen Theatre
