Three Sisters
Dramaturgy Page
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: 10/13/00 |
Plot
Type of work: Drama
Type of plot: Impressionistic realism
Time of plot: Nineteenth century
Locale: Provincial Town in Russia
First presented: 1901Written in four acts, Anton Chekov's play is regarded by some critics as the best drama of the 20th century. The Prozorov sisters, Olga, Masha, and Irina, along with their brother, Andrey, drag out a dull existence in a small provincial garrison town. Only the diversion afforded by the officers and the ever-present dream of someday moving to Moscow keep the sisters going from one drab day to the next. Audrey, who has had dreams of becoming a professor, makes a bad marriage that thwarts his ambition and adds to his sisters' troubles. His wife, Natalya Ivanovna, becomes a domestic despot. Masha, who is married to the pedantic schoolmaster Kulygin, tries to find happiness in a love affair with the officer Vershinin. The youngest sister, Irina, attempts to escape the drabness of her life by marrying Baron Tuzenbakh, another officer. The removal of the regiment from the town undoes Masha's plan, because Vershinin is married and cannot take her with him. Tuzenbakh is killed in a duel. The three sisters are left as they were in the beginning, deriving some faint pleasure from the cheerful sounds of the regimental band as it marches away, still clinging to their hopes for a better life. [Play summary from Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia, p. 1024]
For additional information about the plot, see:
Critical Evaluations of Selected Novels and Plays / PN 44 M35 vol. 4 p. 2253 REF
Encyclopedia of World Drama / PN 1625 G3 1969 (846) REF
International Dictionary of Theatre / PN 2035 I49 1992 vol. 1 (795-797) REF
Masterplots / PN 44 M2 1954 2nd ser. vol.2 REF
Reference Guide to Russian Literature / PG 2940 R44 1998 p. 222 REF
Three Sister or I Can't Go On, I'll Go On. In: Chekov's Plays / PG 3458
Z8 G5 1995 p. 141
For a text of the play, see http://www.eldritchpress.org/ac/sisters.htm
Play Reviews
for Three Sisters
See these sources for reviews of Three Sisters in the library:
Critical Evaluations of Selected Novels and Plays / PN 44 M35 vol. 4 (2253) REF
New York Theatre Critics' Reviews / PN 2000 N76 REF; see
volumes for 1942, 1973, 1975, 1977
New York Times Theater Reviews / PN 2266 N48 (check index for specific volumes) REF
Twentieth Century Literary Criticism / PN 771 C5 REF, volumes 3, 10, 31, 55, 96
For current productions of Three Sisters search
Lexis Nexis Academic.
-
Select the Arts and Sports category.
-
Use the keyword phrase Three Sisters, limiting the search to play reviews.
Selected Journal Articles About Three Sisters
Chekhov's Three Sisters and the Wooster Group's Brace Up! TDR: The Drama Review: A Journal of Performance Studies 36, no. 4 (1992 Winter): p. 143-53
[library owns]
'It Seems to Matter': Linguistic Opposition in Chekhov's The Three Sisters. Irish Slavonic Studies 10, (1989): p. 41-46
Robert Sturua's Production of The Three Sisters. Scottish Slavonic Review 16, (1991 Spring): p. 106-09
Value Structuration in Three Sisters: With Special Reference to the Roles of Time and Place. Assaph: Studies in the Theatre C, no. 4 (1988): p. 19-33
Prisoners of Their Plots: Literary Allusion and the Satiric Drama of Self-Consciousness in
Chekhov's Three Sisters. Modern Drama 32, no. 4 (1989 Dec.): p. 485-501
[library owns]
Three Men in Chekhov's Three Sisters. The Critical Review 21, (1979): p. 11-23
Chekhov's Three Sisters. Explicator 36, no. 2 (1978): p. 22-23
[library owns]
Three Sisters. Hudson Review 30, (1977-78): p. 525-43
[library owns]
Time and Space in Chekhov's The Three Sisters. Publications of the Arkansas Philological Association 2, no. 2 (1976): p. 47-53
The Condition of Talk in Chekhov's Three Sisters. New Laurel Review 4, no. 1-2 (1975): p. 9-16
Chekhov: The Three Sisters. The Critical Review 15, (1972): p. 3-22
An Examination of Chekhov's Presentation of Characters and Themes in Act I of Three Sisters. PPNCFL 20, (1969): p. 94-102
Three times Three. Costume design for the theatrical production
Three sisters. TCI v. 31 (Apr. '97) p. 5-6
[library owns]
Life of Chekhov
By fragmenting the well made play, scattering exposition throughout, compressing, internalizing and excising action, Chekhov created the so-called 'theatre of mood', of misdirection, non-eventfulness and partially stated meaning.
A physician by training, Chekhov began his career as a writer at medical school in Moscow. In his short stories he learned to strike a balance between 'subjectively painful' and 'objectively comedic' perspectives on life, to link the catastrophic with the trivial.
His earliest plays are farces, vaudevilles and 'comedy jokes' based upon his stories. In these succinct pieces Chekhov began to erase the boundary between comedy and drama and to forge the tragi-farcical approach which confounded the audiences and critics of his full-length plays. His uncertainty about his own career as a dramatist was reinforced by the failure of his early plays.
Chekhov's major plays, all staged by Stanislavsky at the Moscow Art Theatre in sentimental and naturalistic productions, developed his characteristic contrapuntal use of dialogue, structure and theme, of offstage and inner action. Time moves relentlessly forward in his plays, while seeming, via home-comings and departures, memories and fixations, to cycle endlessly back, and characters manage to waste what little time they have in the present. This describes both universal human folly and the situation of the pre-revolutionary Russian intelligentsia.
Source: Cambridge Paperback Guide to Theatre
Web Sites
The Anton Chekhov PageContact: Lori Ricigliano
October 2000