Three Sisters
Dramaturgy Page:
Director's Notes
THREE SISTERS MAIN PAGE
| Introduction: This page is part of a Production Research project for the University of Puget Sound production of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters. It is intended to inform the cast and crew about various aspects of the play. Questions should be directed to Lori Ricigliano, library liaison to the Theatre Department. Updated: 4/1/02 |
A
Note After Opening
The
work is far from perfect in many respects but so many moments of
beauty, the beauty of being broken open to sadness and joy.
I
love these three sisters.
A
moment: Masha pacing the stage like an animal after Vershinin has
left, raw pain reddening her face, huge tears, hitting that moment
again and again, performance after performance, mourning not just for
herself and Vershinin, but also for Kulygin who has forgiven her and
is himself heart broken. She is indeed boiling in there.
Rachmaninoff's
Vespers for the scene changes. Between acts three and four,
three wicker chairs carried on and carefully placed, all facing the
same direction, a kind of Robert Wilson moment, then Tuzenbach and
Irina and Fedotik and Ferapont and Kulygin enter to center stage:
slowly lift glasses in a circle and then step back to see each other
in that moment before departure.
Act
4, saying only three things over and over again: good-bye, i love you,
it will be alright. Those are the words I leave the actors with on
opening as I step away from them: good-bye, I love you, it will be
alright. Act 4 is the last supper, Thursday of Holy Week, the picking
up of the dishes as everyone leaves.
The
ferocity of Olga and Natasha in the beginning of three.
Andrei's
dissolution at the end of three: like a long day's journey into night,
a house imploding on itself.
Irina
knows that time is passing and at the end, she stands there. Stunned.
In shock. Lost in pain. Describing autumn and winter and snow and
work, still work. But teaching now.
Olga:
her last line, "if we only knew." Saturday night smiling and
crying at the same time. Hardly able to speak the words. And we know
she is thinking of a sister she loves as well as those beside her.
-Geoff Proehl, Director, reflections after opening the production at the University of Puget Sound