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The Three Sisters<br />
C ast<br />
(in alphabetical order)<br />
David Adkins* Vershinin<br />
Christine Marie Brown* Masha<br />
Willy Conley Fedotik<br />
Gene Farber* Solyony<br />
Kristin Fiorella* Natasha<br />
Mary Fogarty* Anfisa<br />
Joe Hickey* Kulygin<br />
Mahira Kakkar* Irina<br />
Laurence O’Dwyer* Chebutykin<br />
Andy Paterson* Rohde/Voice of Fedotik<br />
Stacy Ross* Olga<br />
Matt Bradford Sullivan* Tuzenbach<br />
Evan Thompson* Ferapont<br />
Tony Ward* Andrey<br />
Alina Lightchaser Musician/Servant<br />
Bradley Wayne Smith Musician/Servant<br />
Debra Acquavella* <strong>Stage</strong> Manager<br />
Mike Schleifer* Assistant <strong>Stage</strong> Manager<br />
* Member of Actors’ Equity Association<br />
Set ting<br />
Place: The Prozorov’s home in the<br />
Russian Provinces, ca. 1900<br />
Time:<br />
Act I: Spring<br />
Act II: Winter, 18 months later<br />
15-minute intermission<br />
Act III: Summer, 18 months later<br />
Act IV: Autumn, 3 months later<br />
Olga Knipper, 1899. The photograph prompted<br />
<strong>Chekhov</strong> to comment: “There’s a little demon lurking<br />
behind your modest expression of quiet sadness.”<br />
<strong>Chekhov</strong> wrote the<br />
role of Masha in Three<br />
Sisters for Olga Knipper,<br />
then his lover and soon to be his wife. It became<br />
her signature role, so much so that the final words<br />
she spoke onstage, at a benefit for her 90 th birthday,<br />
were lines of Masha’s that she’d made almost<br />
legendary—lines of poetry from Pushkin’s Ruslan<br />
and Ludmilla that Masha repeats throughout the<br />
play. That said, you won’t hear those particular<br />
verses in our production. While millions of Russian<br />
school kids, then and now, might memorize and<br />
recognize those lines, they are alien, not familiar, to<br />
us. Where the author had counted on recognition<br />
from his audience, we’d find only incomprehension.<br />
So much of <strong>Chekhov</strong> is about looking into his plays<br />
and seeing yourself, yet how many of us would hear<br />
that quotation and know its source, or recognize<br />
the subtle evocations of thwarted love suggested<br />
by images of a golden chain and an educated cat?<br />
So instead of making <strong>Chekhov</strong> exotic and<br />
distant, I’m hoping this production will<br />
help make him more immediate and<br />
alive. You’ll hear quotations that you<br />
might recognize. And we can all share<br />
a chuckle that <strong>Chekhov</strong> decided to give<br />
Andrey’s first-born son a name you’d<br />
only give to a dog.<br />
— Irene Lewis, Director<br />
Next <strong>Stage</strong>: The Three Sisters | 3
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