Three Sisters is a play by Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n author and playwright Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...

, perhaps partially inspired by the situation of the three Brontë

Brontë

The Brontës were a nineteenth-century literary family associated with Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The sisters, Charlotte , Emily , and Anne , are well-known as poets and novelists...

 sisters, but most probably by the three Zimmermann sisters in Perm

Perm

Perm is a city and the administrative center of Perm Krai, Russia, located on the banks of the Kama River, in the European part of Russia near the Ural Mountains. From 1940 to 1957 it was named Molotov ....

. It was written in 1900

1900 in literature

The year 1900 in literature involved some significant new books and publications, as well as the deaths of several highly prominent writers, including among them the late Irish poet Oscar Wilde and the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche....

 and first produced in 1901.

The Prozorovs

• Olga Sergeyevna Prozorova (Olya) - The eldest of the three sisters, she is the matriarchal figure of the Prozorov family though at the beginning of the play she is only 28 years old. Olga is a teacher at the high school, where she frequently fills in for the oft-absent headmistress. Olga is a spinster and at one point tells Irina that she would have married "any man, even an old man if he had asked" her. Olga is very motherly even to the elderly servants, keeping on the elderly nurse/retainer Anfisa, long after she has ceased to be useful. When Olga reluctantly takes the role of headmistress permanently, she takes Anfisa with her to escape the clutches of the heartless Natasha.

• Maria Sergeyevna Kulygina (Masha) - The middle sister, she is 25 at the beginning of the play. She married her husband, Kulygin, when she was 18 and just out of school. When the play opens she has been disappointed in the marriage and falls completely in love with the idealistic Lieutenant-Colonel Vershinin. They begin a clandestine affair. When he is transferred away, she is crushed, but returns to life with her husband, who accepts her back despite knowing what she has done. She has a short temper, which is seen frequently throughout the play, and is the sister who disapproves the most about Natasha. In performance, Masha's directness often acts as tonic to the suffering in the play, and her wit comes across as heroic. Her vitality provides most of the play's surprisingly plentiful humour. The artist in the play, Masha was trained as a concert pianist.

• Irina Sergeyevna Prozorova - The youngest sister, she is 20 at the beginning of the play. It is her "name day
  Name day
  A name day is a tradition in many countries in Europe and Latin America that consists of celebrating the day of the year associated with one's given name....
  
  " at the beginning of the play and though she insists she is grown-up she is still enchanted by things such as a spinning top
  Top
  A top is a toy that can be spun on an axis, balancing on a point. This motion is produced in the most simple forms of top by twirling the stem using the fingers. More sophisticated tops are spun by by holding the axis firmly while pulling a string or twisting a stick or pushing an auger as shown...
  
   brought to her by Fedotik. Her only desire is to go back to Moscow, which they left eleven years before the play begins. She believes she will find her true love in Moscow, but when it becomes clear that they are not going to Moscow, she agrees to marry the Baron Tuzenbach, whom she admires but does not love. She gets her teaching degree and plans to leave with the Baron, but he is shot by Solyony in a pointless duel. She decides to leave anyway and dedicate her life to work and service.

• Andrei Sergeyevich Prozorov (Andrey) - The brother of the three sisters. In Act I, he is a young man on the fast track to being a Professor in Moscow. In Act II, Andrei still longs for his old days as a bachelor dreaming of life in Moscow but is now stuck in town with a baby and a job as secretary to the County Council
  County council
  A county council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries.-United Kingdom:...
  
  . In Act III, Andrei's debts have grown to 35,000 roubles and he has been forced to mortgage the house, although he doesn't tell his sisters or give them any shares. Act IV finds Andrei a pathetic shell of his former self, now the father of two. He acknowledges that he is a failure and that he is laughed at in town because he is only a member of the village council, of which Protopopov, his wife's lover, is the president.

• Natalia Ivanovna (Natasha) - Andrei's love interest at the start of the play, later his wife. She begins the play as an insecure, awkward young woman who dresses poorly. Much fun is made of her ill-becoming green sash by the sisters, and she bursts into tears. She apparently has no family of her own and the reader never learns her maiden name
  Married and maiden names
  A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
  
  . Act II finds a very different Natasha. She has grown bossy and uses her relationship with Andrei as a way of manipulating the sisters into doing what she wants. She has begun an affair with Protopopov, the head of the local council (who is never seen), and cuckolds Andrei almost flagrantly. In Act III, she has become even more controlling, confronting Olga head on about keeping on Anfisa, the elderly, loyal retainer, whom she orders to stand in her presence, and throwing temper tantrums when she doesn't get her way. Act IV finds that she has inherited control of the house from her weak, vacillating husband, leaving the sisters dependent on her, and planning to radically change the grounds to her liking. It is arguably Natasha, vicious and insensitive of anyone besides her children, on whom she dotes fatuously, who ends the play the happiest, having achieved everything she wants. Natasha's malevolence could be traced, psychologically, to the way she is made fun of in Act One, but she may just be a bad lot. Her triumph can be taken to represent that of an intrinsically insensitive lower class over the refinement of aristocratic ideals (like Lopakin's triumph in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard
  The Cherry Orchard
  The Cherry Orchard is Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's last play. It premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre 17 January 1904 in a production directed by Constantin Stanislavski. Chekhov intended this play as a comedy and it does contain some elements of farce; however, Stanislavski insisted on...
  
  ) and so be interpreted politically.

• Fyodor Ilyich Kulygin - Masha's older husband and the latin teacher at the high school. Kulygin is a jovial, kindly man, who truly loves his wife, and her sisters, although he is very much aware of her infidelity. In the first act he seems almost foolish, giving Irina a gift he has already given her, and joking around with the doctor to make fun of Natasha, but begins to grow more and more sympathetic as Masha's affair progresses. During the fire in Act 3, he confesses to Olga that he might have married her - The fact that the two would probably be very happy together is hinted at many times throughout the show. Throughout the show, often at the most serious moments, he often tries to make the other characters laugh in order to relieve tension, and while that doesn't always work, he is able to give his wife comfort through humor in her darkest hour at the show's climax. At the end of the play, though knowing what his wife has been up to, he takes her back and accepts her failings.

The soldiers

• Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin - Lieutenant-Colonel commanding the artillery battery, Vershinin is a true philosopher. He knew the girls' father in Moscow and they talk about how when they were little they called him the "Lovesick Major." In the course of the play, despite being married, he enters into an affair with Masha but must end it when the battery is transferred. He frequently mentions how his wife regularly attempts suicide (and he has two daughters), but he seems to have become inured to his domestic suffering. His first act speech about the hope he has for civilization speaks directly to Masha's melancholic heart, and, upon hearing it, she declares "I'm staying for lunch."

• Baron Nikolai Lvovich Tuzenbach - A lieutenant in the army and spoken of as not at all good-looking, Tuzenbach often philosophizes to be part of the group and impress Irina. He has loved Irina for five years and quits the Army to go to work in an attempt to impress her. He is repeatedly taunted by Solyony and between Acts III and IV, he retaliates and prompts Solyony to declare a duel. He is killed in the duel, perhaps allowing himself to be because he knows he will never win her heart.

• Staff Captain Vassily Vasilyevich Solyony - A captain in the army, Solyony is a social mishap and a rather modern type of anti-hero
  Anti-hero
  In fiction, an antihero is generally considered to be a protagonist whose character is at least in some regards conspicuously contrary to that of the archetypal hero, and is in some instances its antithesis in which the character is generally useless at being a hero or heroine when they're...
  
  . He is in love with Irina and tries to put down the Baron to make himself look better, but Irina finds him crude and unappealing. He spends much of his time self-destructively mocking the Baron, who is the closest thing he has to a friend, and ends up killing him in a pointless duel. He is said to have a remarkable resemblance to the poet Lermontov in both face and personality, often quoting him. He always carries a small perfume bottle which he frequently (almost pathologically) sprinkles his hands and body with; it is later revealed that he does it to mask the smell of corpses on him.

• Ivan Romanovich Chebutykin - Sixty years old and an army doctor, Chebutykin starts off as a fun, eccentric old man who exults in his place as family friend and lavishes upon Irina the expensive gift of a samovar. Later on in Act III, while drunk, he suffers an existential crisis
  Existential crisis
  An existential crisis is a stage of development at which an individual questions the very foundations of his or her life: whether his or her life has any meaning, purpose or value...
  
   and reveals to all about Natasha's and Protopopov's affair. In Act IV however, he seems to have come to terms with his crisis or perhaps been broken by it. Though he loved the mother of the sisters (whose name is never mentioned), she was married. (Some critics have suggested that Irina might be Chebutykin's daughter, with the girls' mother having entertained a Vershinin-like affair with Chebutykin, but there is no conclusive textual evidence for this.)

• Alexei Petrovich Fedotik - A sub-lieutenant
  Sub-Lieutenant
  Sub-lieutenant is a military rank. It is normally a junior officer rank.In many navies, a sub-lieutenant is a naval commissioned or subordinate officer, ranking below a lieutenant. In the Royal Navy the rank of sub-lieutenant is equivalent to the rank of lieutenant in the British Army and of...
  
  , Fedotik hangs around the house and tries to express his love to Irina by buying her many gifts. He also is an amateur photographer, and takes photos of the group and Irina. In Act III, he loses all his belongings in the fire, but retains his cheerful nature.

• Vladimir Karlovich Rode - Another sub-lieutenant, Rode is a drill coach at the high school.

Others

• Ferapont - Door-keeper at local council offices, Ferapont is an old man with a partial hearing loss
  Hearing impairment
  -Definition:Deafness is the inability for the ear to interpret certain or all frequencies of sound.-Environmental Situations:Deafness can be caused by environmental situations such as noise, trauma, or other ear defections...
  
  . He repeatedly blurts out random facts, usually relating to Moscow.
• Anfisa - A nurse in the family, Anfisa is 81 years old and has worked forever with the Prozorovs. Natasha begins to despise her for her feebleness and threatens to throw her out, but Olga takes her to live in her school apartment. She is the one character in the play, apart from Natasha, who ends up content.

Unseen characters

The Three Sisters has a great number of important characters that are talked about frequently, but never seen. These include Protopopov, head of the local Council and Natasha's lover; Vershinin's suicidal wife and two daughters; and Andrei and Natasha's children Bobik and Sofochka. J. L. Styan contends in his The Elements of Drama that in the last act "The children are tended by their respective fathers"; Andrey pushes Bobik in his pram, and Protopopov sits with Sofochka.

Act I

Act one begins with Olga (the eldest of the sisters) working as a teacher in a school, but at the end of the play she is made Headmistress, a promotion she had no interest in. Masha, the middle sister and the artist of the family (she was trained as a concert pianist), is married to Feodor Ilyich Kulygin, a schoolteacher. At the time of their marriage, Masha, younger than he, was enchanted by what she took to be wisdom, but seven years later, she sees through his pedantry and his clownish attempts to compensate for the emptiness between them. Irina, the youngest sister, is still full of expectation. She speaks of her dream of going to Moscow and meeting her true love. It was in Moscow that the sisters grew up, and they all long to return to the sophistication and happiness of that time. Andrei is the only boy in the family and the sisters idolize him. He is in love with Natalia Ivanovna (Natasha), who is somewhat common in relation to the sisters and suffers under their glance. The play begins on the first anniversary of their father's death, but it is also Irina's name-day, and everyone, including the soldiers (led by the gallant Vershinin) bringing with them a sense of noble idealism

Idealism

In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...

, comes together to celebrate it. At the very close of the act, Andrei exultantly confesses his feelings to Natasha in private and asks her to marry him.

Act II

Act two begins about 21 months later with Andrei and Natasha married with their first child (offstage), a baby boy. Natasha is having an affair with Protopopov, Andrei's superior, a character who is mentioned but never seen onstage. Masha comes home flushed from a night out, and it is clear that she and her companion, Lieutenant-Colonel Vershinin, are giddy with the secret of their mutual love for one another. Little seems to happen but that Natasha manipulatively quashes the plans for a party in the home, but the resultant quiet suggests that all gaiety is being quashed as well. The play turns on such subtle, life-like touches. Tuzenbach and Solyony declare their love for Irina.

Act III

Act three takes place about a year later in Olga and Irina's room (a clear sign that Natasha is taking over the household as she asked them to share rooms so that her child could have a different room). There has been a fire in the town, and, in the crisis, people are passing in and out of the room, carrying blankets and clothes to give aid. Olga, Masha and Irina are angry with their brother, Andrei, for mortgaging their home, keeping the money to pay off his gambling debts and conceding all his power to his wife. However, when faced with Natasha's cruelty to their aged family servant Anfisa, Olga's own best efforts to stand up to Natasha come to naught. Masha, alone with her sisters, confides in them her romance with Vershinin ("I love, love, love that man."). At one point, Kulygin (her husband) blunders into the room, doting ever more foolishly on her, and she stalks out. Irina despairs at the common turn her life has taken, the life of a schoolteacher, even as she rails at the folly of her aspirations and her education ("I can't remember the Italian for 'window'.") Out of her resignation, supported in this by Olga's realistic outlook, Irina decides to accept Tuzenbach's offer of marriage even though she does not love him. Chebutykin drunkenly stumbles on and smashes a clock belonging to the sister's and Andrei's mother, whom he loved. Andrei gives vent to his self-hatred

Self-hatred

Self-hatred refers to an extreme dislike and hatred of oneself, or being angry at or even prejudiced towards oneself. The term is also used to designate a dislike or hatred of a group, family, social class, mental illness, or stereotype to which one belongs and/or has...

, acknowledges his own awareness of life's folly and his disappointment in Natasha's character, and begs his sisters' forgiveness for everything.

Act IV

In the fourth and final act, outdoors behind the home, the soldiers, who by now are friends of the family, are preparing to leave the area. A flash-photograph is taken. There is an undercurrent of tension because Solyony has challenged the Baron (Tuzenbach) to a duel, but Tuzenbach is intent on hiding it from Irina. He and Irina share a heartbreaking delicate scene in which she confesses that she cannot love him, likening her heart to a piano whose key has been lost. Just as the soldiers are leaving, a shot is heard, and Tuzenbach's death in the duel is announced shortly before the end of the play. Masha has to be pulled, sobbing, from Vershinin's arms, but her husband willingly, compassionately and all too generously accepts her back, no questions asked. Olga has reluctantly accepted the position of permanent headmistress of the school where she teaches and is moving out. She is taking Anfisa with her, thus rescuing the elderly woman from more of Natasha's blunt cruelties. Irina's fate is uncertain but, even in her grief at Tuzenbach's death, she wants to persevere in her work as a teacher. Natasha remains as the chatelaine, in charge and in control—of everything. ("What is this fork doing here?" Natasha hollers.). Andrei is stuck in his marriage with two children, the only people that Natasha truly dotes on. As the play closes, the three sisters stand in a desperate embrace, gazing off as the soldiers depart to the sound of a band's gay march. As Chebutykin sings "Ta-ra-ra-boom-di-ay" to himself, Olga's final lines call out for an end to the confusion all three feel at life's sufferings and joy: "If we only knew… If we only knew."

Theme

Three Sisters is a naturalistic play about the decay of the privileged class in Russia and the search for meaning in the modern world. It describes the lives and aspirations of the Prozorov family, the three sisters (Olga, Masha, and Irina) and their brother Andrei. They are a family dissatisfied and frustrated with their present existence. The sisters are refined and cultured young women who grew up in urban Moscow; however for the past eleven years they have been living in a small provincial town.

Chekhov's initial inspiration was the general life-story of the three Brontë

Brontë

The Brontës were a nineteenth-century literary family associated with Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. The sisters, Charlotte , Emily , and Anne , are well-known as poets and novelists...

 sisters, i.e., their refinement in the midst of provincial isolation and their disappointment in the expectations they had of their brother Branwell.

Moscow is a major symbolic element: the sisters are always dreaming of it and constantly express their desire to return. They identify Moscow with their happiness, and thus to them it represents the perfect life. However as the play develops Moscow never materializes and they all see their dreams recede further and further. Meaning never presents itself and they are forced to seek it out for themselves.

Notable productions

Dates	Production	Director	Notes
May 24, 1965	BBC Home Service BBC Home Service The BBC Home Service was a British national radio station which broadcast from 1939 until 1967.-Development:Between the 1920s and the outbreak of The Second World War, the BBC had developed two nationwide radio services, the BBC National Programme and the BBC Regional Programme...	John Tydeman	English translation by Elisaveta Fen; adapted for radio by Peter Watts Peter Watts (musician) Peter Overend Watts is a bass guitar player and founding member of 1970s rock band, Mott the Hoople.... ; cast included Paul Scofield Paul Scofield David Paul Scofield, CH, CBE , better known as Paul Scofield, was an English actor of stage and screen... , Lynn Redgrave Lynn Redgrave Lynn Rachel Redgrave, OBE was an English actress.A member of the well-known British family of actors, Redgrave trained in London before making her theatrical debut in 1962... , Ian McKellen Ian McKellen Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE is an English actor. He has received a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction... , Jill Bennett, among others
29 September 1979	The Other Place The Other Place The Other Place may refer to:* The Other Place , a 1999 young adult novel* The Other Place, a collection of short stories by J. B... , Stratford-upon-Avon	Trevor Nunn Trevor Nunn Sir Trevor Robert Nunn, CBE is an English theatre, film and television director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed musicals and dramas for the stage, as well as opera...	Version by Richard Cottrell Richard Cottrell Richard Cottrell is an English theatre director. He has been the Director of the Cambridge Theatre Company and the Bristol Old Vic in England, and of the Nimrod Theatre in Sydney, Australia...
August 30 - October 13, 2007	Soulpepper Theatre, Toronto	László Marton	Version by Nicolas Billon Nicolas Billon Nicolas Billon is a Canadian playwright. He is best known for his plays The Elephant Song and Greenland.-Biography:Nicolas Billon was born in Ottawa but grew up mainly in Montréal....  with László Marton
July 29 - August 3, 2008	Playhouse, QPAC, Brisbane	Declan Donnellan Declan Donnellan Declan Donnellan is a British theatre director and writer. He is co-founder of Cheek by Jowl theatre company. In 1992 he received an honoris causa degree from the University of Warwick and in 2004 he was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his work in France...	Chekhov International Theatre Festival (Moscow), part of Brisbane Festival 2008
May 5, 2009 - June 14, 2009	Artists Repertory Theatre Artists Repertory Theatre Artists Repertory Theatre is a critically acclaimed professional non-profit theatre located in Portland, Oregon. The company was established in 1982 and focuses on presenting the works of contemporary playwrights, including many world premieres... , Portland	Jon Kretzu	Adapted by Tracy Letts Tracy Letts Tracy Letts is an American playwright and actor who received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play August: Osage County.-Biography:...
Jan 12 - March 6, 2011	Classic Stage Company Classic Stage Company Classic Stage Company, or CSC, is a classical Off-Broadway theater dedicated to reimagining the classical repertory for a contemporary American audience, presenting plays from the past that speak directly to today's issues. Founded in 1967, Classic Stage Company is one of Off-Broadway's... , NYC	Austin Pendleton	Maggie Gyllenhaal Maggie Gyllenhaal Margaret Ruth "Maggie" Gyllenhaal born November 16, 1977) is an American actress. She is the daughter of director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal and the older sister of actor Jake Gyllenhaal. She made her screen debut when she began to appear in her father's films...  and Peter Sarsgaard Peter Sarsgaard John Peter Sarsgaard is an American film and stage actor. He landed his first feature role in the movie Dead Man Walking in 1995. He then appeared in the 1998 independent films Another Day in Paradise and Desert Blue. That same year, Sarsgaard received a substantial role in The Man in the Iron...  star.

• John Gielgud
  John Gielgud
  Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
  
  's 1936-7 landmark season at the Queen's Theatre included a well-received production with Peggy Ashcroft
  Peggy Ashcroft
  Dame Peggy Ashcroft, DBE was an English actress.-Early years:Born as Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft in Croydon, Ashcroft attended the Woodford School, Croydon and the Central School of Speech and Drama...
  
   as Irina and Michael Redgrave
  Michael Redgrave
  Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave, CBE was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author.-Youth and education:...
  
   as Tusenbach.
• In 1942 Judith Anderson
  Judith Anderson
  Dame Judith Anderson, AC, DBE was an Australian-born American-based actress of stage, film and television. She won two Emmy Awards and a Tony Award and was also nominated for a Grammy Award and an Academy Award.-Early life:...
  
   portrayed Olga, Katharine Cornell
  Katharine Cornell
  Katharine Cornell was an American stage actress, writer, theater owner and producer. She was born to American parents and raised in Buffalo, New York.Cornell is known as the greatest American stage actress of the 20th century...
  
   Masha and the young Ruth Gordon
  Ruth Gordon
  Ruth Gordon Jones , better known as Ruth Gordon, was an American actress and writer. She was perhaps best known for her film roles such as Minnie Castevet, Rosemary's overly solicitous neighbor in Rosemary's Baby, as the eccentric Maude in Harold and Maude and as the mother of Orville Boggs in the...
  
   Natasha on Broadway. The production was significant enough to land the cast on the cover of Time Magazine on December 21, 1942, which proclaimed it "a dream production by anybody's reckoning -- the most glittering cast the theatre has seen, commercially, in this generation."http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,886023,00.html
• The 1963 inaugural season of the Guthrie Theater
  Guthrie Theater
  The Guthrie Theater is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the result of the desire of Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Oliver Rea, and Peter Zeisler to create a resident acting company that would produce and perform the classics in...
  
   included a production with Jessica Tandy
  Jessica Tandy
  Jessie Alice "Jessica" Tandy was an English-American stage and film actress.She first appeared on the London stage in 1926 at the age of 16, playing, among others, Katherine opposite Laurence Olivier's Henry V, and Cordelia opposite John Gielgud's King Lear. She also worked in British films...
  
   playing Olga.
• There is a filmed record of a mid-1960s production by The Actors Studio (much criticized for self-indulgence but mesmerizing nonetheless) with legendary stage-actresses Kim Stanley
  Kim Stanley
  Kim Stanley was an American actress, primarily in television and theatre, but with occasional film performances....
  
   and Geraldine Page
  Geraldine Page
  Geraldine Sue Page was an American actress. Although she starred in at least two dozen feature films, she is primarily known for her celebrated work in the American theater...
  
   as Masha and Olga, respectively, supported by Sandy Dennis
  Sandy Dennis
  Sandra Dale “Sandy” Dennis was an American theater and film actress. In 1966, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.-Early life:...
  
  's Irina and Shelley Winters
  Shelley Winters
  Shelley Winters was an American actress who appeared in dozens of films, as well as on stage and television; her career spanned over 50 years until her death in 2006...
  
  's Natasha.
• American Film Theatre
  American Film Theatre
  The American Film Theatre was a limited run series of film adaptations of stage plays, produced by Ely Landau. Two seasons were produced from 1973 to 1975...
  
   in 1970 filmed a version acted by Brits, restrained but with a witty Masha from Joan Plowright
  Joan Plowright
  Joan Ann Plowright, Baroness Olivier, DBE , better known as Dame Joan Plowright, is an English actress, whose career has spanned over sixty years. Throughout her career she has won two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award and has been nominated for an Academy Award, an Emmy, and two BAFTA Awards...
  
   opposite Alan Bates
  Alan Bates
  Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...
  
   as Vershinin, with Ronald Pickup
  Ronald Pickup
  -Life and career:Pickup was born in Chester, England, the son of Daisy and Eric Pickup, who was a lecturer. Pickup was educated at The King's School, Chester, trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and became an Associate Member of RADA.His television work began with an episode...
  
   as Tusenbach and Laurence Olivier
  Laurence Olivier
  Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...
  
  , who co-directed, playing Chebutykin.
• Rosemary Harris
  Rosemary Harris
  Rosemary Ann Harris is an English actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Throughout her career she has been nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and has won a Golden Globe, an Emmy, a Tony Award, an Obie, and five Drama Desk Awards.-Early life:Harris was born in...
  
  , Ellen Burstyn
  Ellen Burstyn
  Ellen Burstyn is a leading American actress of film, stage, and television. Burstyn's career began in theatre during the late 1950s, and over the next ten years she appeared in several films and television series before joining the Actors Studio in 1967...
  
   and Tovah Feldshuh
  Tovah Feldshuh
  Tovah Feldshuh is an American actress, singer and playwright.-Early life:Terri Sue Feldshuh was born to a Jewish family in New York City, the daughter of Lillian and Sidney Feldshuh, who was a lawyer. She was raised in Scarsdale, New York, an affluent community in Westchester County and graduated...
  
   played, respectively, Olga, a determinedly warm-spirited Masha and Irina in an all-star
  All-star
  All-star is a term designating an individual as having a high level of performance in their field. Originating in sports, it has since drifted into vernacular and been borrowed heavily by the entertainment industry...
  
   production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
  Brooklyn Academy of Music
  Brooklyn Academy of Music is a major performing arts venue in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, United States, known as a center for progressive and avant garde performance....
  
   in the 1970s with Rene Auberjonois
  Rene Auberjonois
  René Murat Auberjonois is an American actor, known for portraying Father Mulcahy in the movie version of M*A*S*H and for creating a number of characters in long-running television series, including Clayton Endicott III on Benson , Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Chef Louis in The Little...
  
   in the scene-stealing role of misanthropic Solyony.
• A 1982 production at Manhattan Theatre Club
  Manhattan Theatre Club
  Manhattan Theatre Club is a theater company located in New York City. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lynne Meadow and Executive Producer Barry Grove, Manhattan Theatre Club has grown since its founding in 1970 from an Off-Off Broadway showcase into one of the country’s most acclaimed...
  
  , led by Dianne Wiest
  Dianne Wiest
  Dianne Wiest is an American actress. She has had a successful career on stage, television, and film, and has won two Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. Wiest has also been nominated for a BAFTA Award.-Early life:...
  
   as Masha, had Lisa Banes
  Lisa Banes
  Lisa Banes is an American stage and screen actress. She played Lady Croom in the U.S. premiere of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia in 1995 and won a 1981 Theatre World Award for her performance in Look Back in Anger. A graduate of the Juilliard School, she recently appeared on Broadway in the 2010 revival...
  
   as an Olga especially fond of Vershinin, Mia Dillon
  Mia Dillon
  Mia Dillon is an American actress.Born in Colorado, Dillon graduated from Marple-Newtown Senior High School in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. She made her Broadway debut in Hugh Leonard's Da in 1978...
  
   as Irina, Christine Ebersole
  Christine Ebersole
  Christine Ebersole is an American actress and singer.-Early life:Ebersole was born in Winnetka, Illinois, where she attended New Trier High School...
  
   as Natasha, Sam Waterston
  Sam Waterston
  Samuel Atkinson "Sam" Waterston is an American actor and occasional producer and director. Among other roles, he is noted for his Academy Award-nominated portrayal of Sydney Schanberg in 1984's The Killing Fields, and his Golden Globe- and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning portrayal of Jack McCoy...
  
   as Vershinin, Jeff Daniels
  Jeff Daniels
  Jeffrey Warren "Jeff" Daniels is an American actor, musician and playwright. He founded a non-profit theatre company, the Purple Rose Theatre Company, in his home state of Michigan...
  
   as an endearingly oafish Andrei, Bob Balaban
  Bob Balaban
  Robert Elmer "Bob" Balaban is an American actor, author and director.-Personal life:Balaban was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Eleanor and Elmer Balaban, who owned several movie theatres and later was a pioneer in cable television...
  
   as Tusenbach, and the veteran comic actor Jack Gilford
  Jack Gilford
  Jack Gilford was an American actor on Broadway, films and television.-Early life:Gilford was born Jacob Aaron Gellman on the lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, and grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn...
  
   as Chebutykin.
• Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre put one together under the direction of Austin Pendleton
  Austin Pendleton
  Austin Pendleton is an American film, television, and stage actor, a playwright, and a theatre director and instructor.-Life and career:...
  
   (himself a much-praised Tusenbach in the Ellen Burstyn production), with Molly Regan's briskly efficient Olga, Joan Allen
  Joan Allen
  Joan Allen is an American actress. She worked in theatre, television and film during her early career, and achieved recognition for her Broadway debut in Burn This, winning a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play in 1989.She has received three Academy Award nominations;...
  
  's inward-drawn Masha, Rondi Reed
  Rondi Reed
  Rondi Reed is an American stage actress, singer and performer.-Career:Reed has been a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago, Illinois, for 30 years, appearing in 51 productions with the company....
  
  's slatternly Natasha, and Kevin Anderson as a Solyony who came close to forcing himself physically on Irina at the close of Act Two.
• The Roundabout Theatre in New York brought together an odd assortment of stars for a production that had Jerry Stiller
  Jerry Stiller
  Gerald Isaac "Jerry" Stiller is an American comedian and actor.He spent many years in the comedy team Stiller and Meara with his wife Anne Meara...
  
  's desperately frustrated Chebutykin, a handsome Solyony in Billy Crudup
  Billy Crudup
  William Gaither "Billy" Crudup is an American actor of film and stage. He is well known for his roles as guitarist Russell Hammond in Almost Famous, Will Bloom in Big Fish, and Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke. He also starred in the 2007 romantic comedy film Dedication, alongside Mandy Moore...
  
  , indie-film actress Lili Taylor
  Lili Taylor
  Lili Anne Taylor is an American actress notable for her appearances in such award-winning indie films as Mystic Pizza, Say Anything..., Short Cuts and I Shot Andy Warhol, and the acclaimed TV show Six Feet Under....
  
   a rather depressed Irina, Paul Giamatti
  Paul Giamatti
  Paul Edward Valentine Giamatti is an American actor. Giamatti began his career as a supporting actor in several films produced during the 1990s including Private Parts, The Truman Show, Saving Private Ryan, The Negotiator, and Man on the Moon, before earning lead roles in several projects in the...
  
   well-cast and touching as Andrei, Amy Irving
  Amy Irving
  Amy Davis Irving is an American actress, known for her roles in the films Crossing Delancey, The Fury, Carrie, and Yentl as well as acclaimed roles on Broadway and Off-Broadway. She has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Golden Globes, and has won an Obie award...
  
   as Olga, movie-star-pretty Jeanne Tripplehorn
  Jeanne Tripplehorn
  Jeanne Marie Tripplehorn is an American film and television actress. She was brought to the public's attention through her supporting role in the 1992 film Basic Instinct, and since 2006 has starred opposite Bill Paxton in the HBO drama Big Love.-Early life:Tripplehorn was born in Tulsa,...
  
   as Masha, the witty, sylph-like Natasha of Calista Flockhart
  Calista Flockhart
  Calista Kay Flockhart is an American actress who is primarily recognized for her work in television. She is best known for playing the title character in the Fox comedy-drama series Ally McBeal for which she won a Golden Globe Award...
  
  , just before she became a television star with Ally McBeal
  Ally McBeal
  Ally McBeal is an American legal comedy-drama series which aired on the Fox network from 1997 to 2002. The series was created by David E. Kelley, who also served as the executive producer, along with Bill D'Elia...
  
  , and a great, sad hero of a Vershinin in David Strathairn
  David Strathairn
  David Russell Strathairn is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for portraying journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck...
  
  .
• In 1991, Vanessa Redgrave
  Vanessa Redgrave
  Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
  
   (Olga) and Lynn Redgrave
  Lynn Redgrave
  Lynn Rachel Redgrave, OBE was an English actress.A member of the well-known British family of actors, Redgrave trained in London before making her theatrical debut in 1962...
  
   (Masha) made their first and only appearance together onstage in this, with niece Jemma Redgrave
  Jemma Redgrave
  Jemma Redgrave is a fourth-generation English actress of the Redgrave family.-Early life/family:Born in London as Jemima Rebecca Redgrave, she is the daughter of the late actor Corin Redgrave and his first wife, the late Deirdre Hamilton-Hill, a former fashion model. They divorced when Jemma was...
  
   as Irina.
• A 2010 production at the Lyric Hammersmith
  Lyric Hammersmith
  The Lyric Theatre, also known as the Lyric Hammersmith, is a theatre on King Street, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which takes pride in its original, "groundbreaking" productions....
  
   by Filter had a cast including Poppy Miller
  Poppy Miller
  Poppy Miller is a British actress. Miller was born in Norwich, UK and studied philosophy and English at Cambridge University and later attended the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. She is mostly known for her role as DI Carol Browning in the British detective series The Commander...
  
  , Romola Garai
  Romola Garai
  Romola Sadie Garai is an English actress. She is known for appearing in the movies Amazing Grace, Atonement, and Glorious 39, and for appearing in the BBC adaptation of Emma.-Early life:...
  
   and Clare Dunne
  Clare Dunne
  Clare Dunne OAM is an Irish-born Australian actress, author, lecturer and broadcaster. Her first name is also found as Claire.-1960s Australian celebrity:Dunne was a popular Australian television and film personality of the 1960s...
  
  
• In 2011 it was adapted by Blake Morrison
  Blake Morrison
  Philip Blake Morrison is a British poet and author who has published in a wide range of fiction and non-fiction genres. His greatest success came with the publication of his memoirs And When Did You Last See Your Father? which won the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography. He has also written a...
  
   for Northern Broadsides
  Northern Broadsides
  Northern Broadsides is a theatre company formed in 1992 and based at Dean Clough Mill in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. The founder and artistic director is Barrie Rutter. The company performs in Halifax and on tour, a mix of Shakespeare and other productions. Music is specially written for...
  
   under the title We Are Three Sisters, drawing out parallels with the lives of the Bronte sisters.

External links

• Oxquarry Books, an English translation of Three Sisters
• Project Gutenberg, English translations of several Chekhov plays, including Three Sisters
• Full text of Three Sisters (in the original Russian)