3 SISTERS is an adaptation of Chekhov’s masterpiece that explores the ‘fate-in-retrospect’ of three iconic and singular young women: Olga, Masha and Irina. Our play starts where Chekhov’s ends: the military brigade has left town, the last vestiges of culture and urbanity have gone, and the would-be lovers and admirers of the women have vanished – and with them the hope that they can reach Moscow. Moscow – the girls’ utopian image of youth, a memory which has for so long stoked their embers of hope – disintegrates throughout Chekhov’s story into an ashen symbol of failure and non-attainment. What succession of events and what decisions prevented them from realizing their dreams? If they unravel the thread of their lives, what essence, what truth can they find in the tangle of memory? In the desert of possibility, is there an oasis of reality in what has been and can be remembered? Can the truth of one’s recollected life occasion vitality and transformation?
In this singular adaptation, the Prozorov sisters are brought into intimate proximity with our contemporary situation by interweaving Chekhov's text with personal memories, linguistic patterns, and documentary material from the lives of the actresses--leaving little room to cast the sisters as relics of the old theater canon, and allowing them instead to emerge as figures both timely and untimely in their confrontation of modern life.
Under the direction of Andrej Visky, Theatre Y investigates the heart of this deconstructed classic, the relationship of reality and fiction therein, and the acts of remembering and longing that harbor our illusive human identity.
Directed by Andrej Visky
Design by Peter Szabo
Text Devised by Andrej Visky, Evan Hill & Dan Christmann
Featuring: Melissa Lorraine, Katie Stimpson, Kevlyn Hayes