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Three Sisters (Poulton)

"I find the older I get the more there is to discover... In my whole lifetime I've hardly scratched the surface. One thing I have learned -- through bitter experience -- is the happiness in our lives is measured in moments -- not minutes, not days, certainly not in years. Happiness is accidental -- comes to us as an uninvited guest."

More information

Description

  • Full Length Play
  • Drama

A play based around youthful hopes and dreams squashed by the necessary grind of life. Chekhov offers a closely observed study of a family falling apart. Everything is taken from the three sisters - Olga, Masha and Irina - the security of their comfortable home life, their ambitious plans for a bright future, love and lovers. A complex process of stripping away from them everything they hold dear is played out over four increasingly tense acts, bringing reward to some and despair to others.

Premiere Production: First performed at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester in 2003.

Characters

  • Casting:
  • Casting Notes: Large Cast

  • OLGA "OLYA" - (28) She is the eldest sister, old before her time, the most experienced and perhaps the wisest. Certainly the most realistic. She should be married to Kulygin -- there should be a sense they would have made each other happy.

  • MARIA "MASHA" - (26) Unhappily married to Kulygin -- a good man. She married her teacher because he seemed like the cleverest man in their narrow, provincial society. She's bright, clever, romantic and has no outlet for her energies and talents. She has finally admitted to herself that her marriage was a mistake.

  • IRINA - (20) The youngest sister -- and she's young for her age. She's the centre of attention for every young officer in the camp. She has more hopes and dreams to destroy than her older sisters.

  • AUDREY - (22) Talented but lazy and unconfrontational. The feeling is that he was a disappointment to his father and he knows it. Disastrously infatuated with a girl from a lower class.

  • ANFISA - (80) She has brought up the four children. They expect too much of her. She endures everything and survives. Along with Fedotik she's the only character who ends the play blissfully happy.

  • NATASHA - (25) A cunning, badly-educated, ambitious, thoroughly unpleasant girl from the peasant classes. The sisters despise her. Her affair with a local civil servant continues after her marriage to Audrey. A cuckoo in the sisters' nest. Her grammar is poor.

  • FYODOR KULYGIN - (42) Masha's husband, a well-meaning thoroughly good man. He suffers his wife's adultery in silence because he loves her and stands by her.

  • VERSHININ - (42) The garrison commander. He is the most glamorous figure in this provincial backwater. Well-meaning and thoroughly confused. Unhappily married to a highly-strung wife. A lost soul, really.

  • THE BARON TUSENBACH - (27) An aristocrat who was never cut out for the army. He's in love with, and devoted to Irina. There ought to be a sense that when he resigns his commission he is rather like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.

  • SOLYONY - (35) A depressive, self-obsessed, melancholic. He models himself on Lermontov's Hero of Our Time. Over sensitive, and given to absurd assertions. Probably in love with Tusenbach, he drunkenly declares his love to Irina in an attempt to split them up.

  • IVAN ROMANITCH CHEBUTYKIN - (63) A doctor on the point of retirement, he lodges with the sisters. He adores them all but Irina in particular whom he spoils. He's seen it all. Nothing ruffles him.

  • FEDOTIK - (20) A very young officer. Nothing brings him down. He sees the good and the fun in everything. Perpetually cheerful. He loves Irina but is daunted by her.

  • RODE - (20) A hearty, athletic young officer.

  • FERRAPONT - (65) A messenger at the town council. He's deaf, old, and his mind is going.

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    • Available Material

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    Three Sisters (Poulton) Script Order Now

    A play based around youthful hopes and dreams squashed by the necessary grind of life. Chekhov offers a closely observed study of a family falling apart. Everything is taken from the three sisters - Olga, Masha and Irina - the security of their comfortable home life, their ambitious plans for a bright future, love and lovers. A complex process of stripping away from them everything they hold dear is played out over four increasingly tense acts, bringing reward to some and despair to others.

    		 $24.95

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