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the play |
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Link to Three Sisters Dramaturgy Page, with information and links on Anton Chekhov
Link to Biography of Paul Schmidt, Translator
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THREE SISTERS is widely regarded as a masterpiece of the modern theatre and one of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's greatest plays. HapaLis Prods is mounting the Los Angeles premiere of Paul Schmidt's translation, which has been produced at A.R.T. in Cambridge (MA) and A.C.T. in San Francisco, as well as other prestigious theatres in the U.S.
In this production, the siblings are being portrayed as hapas (multi-ethnic people of partially Asian descent) by hapa actors. Their feelings of restlessness and alienation are a matter of class, education, and ethnicity in this interpretation. We are intrigued by the added nuance of their being ethnically different in a small provincial town, when once they excelled in culturally diverse, artistically vivid Moscow. In this interpretation their late mother was Chinese-Russian, and the few Chinese mementos they have of her disappear as the play progresses (and as sister-in-law Natasha encroaches into the house). The ethnic element is implied via set and sound design as well as the casting of the siblings, while remaining faithful to the text.
Highlighting differences between economic and cultural status, we see what happens when those worlds collide. A parentless family of siblings has to learn to take responsibility for themselves, for their well being and their happiness. Set at the verge of the modern world, THREE SISTERS asks: what will happen to those unprepared for the future? What happens to the dreamers and idealists and broken-hearted? And how do people who have everything taken away from them survive?
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