Three Sisters

by Anton Chekhov, Lucy Caldwell (Translator)

Overview

I don't know what it is I'm going to do but I'm going to do something. I'm going to be someone. I am! I'm sick of just being me. I'm going to be someone else. Someone better. I'm going to make a difference.
Three sisters, Orla, Marianne and Erin, dream of escaping their tedious suburban lives for a fresh start in America. It is Erin's eighteenth birthday and, as the sun shines and guests assemble, everything for a fleeting moment feels possible.
Relocated from a Russian provincial town in 1900 to East Belfast in the 1990s, Lucy Caldwell's new version of Chekhov's Three Sisters opened at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast in October 2016.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780571334926
Publisher:	Faber and Faber
Publication date:	11/03/2016
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	96
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Anton Chekhov and Lucy Caldwell
Anton Chekhov, Russian dramatist and short-story writer, was born in 1860, the son of a grocer and the grandson of a serf. After graduating in medicine from Moscow University in 1884, he began to make his name in the theatre with the one-act comedies The Bear, The Proposal and The Wedding. His earliest full-length plays, Ivanov (1887) and The Wood Demon (1889), were not successful, and The Seagull, produced in 1896, was a failure until a triumphant revival by the Moscow Art Theatre in 1898. This was followed by Uncle Vanya (1899), Three Sisters (1901) and The Cherry Orchard (1904), shortly after the production of which Chekhov died. The first English translations of his plays were performed within five years of his death.
Lucy Caldwell was born in Belfast in 1981. She is the author of four novels, several stage plays and radio dramas, and two collections of short stories: Multitudes and Intimacies. She won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2021 for 'All the People Were Mean and Bad'. Other awards include the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the George Devine Award, the Dylan Thomas Prize and a Major Individual Artist Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018 and in 2019 she was the editor of Being Various - New Irish Short Stories.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Right up there with the best ever Three Sisters (by Laurence Olivier, Jonathan Miller, Trevor Nunn, Field Day and the Katona Josef in Budapest) but a sensational breakthrough and a poetic revelation at the same time, and in its own gloriously idiosyncratic manner." – Michael Coveney, What’s On Stage (5 stars)

"Andrews has come up with a bracingly original vision: he turns the play inside out, bashes it around, and drops in anachronisms, yet his approach yields revelatory results. In the end, against the odds, this is a moving and absorbing Three Sisters" – Evening Standard

"This version does not set out to endear itself to traditionalists… has a jagged energy and a powerful sense of conviction" – The Independent

"Energising, modern… grabs some of the most thorny Chekhov questions about human existence with a firm unsentimental grip" – Huffington Post

"Profoundly moving… this is Chekhov refreshed and reimagined." – Guardian

"One of the most exciting Chekhovs in years… often hilarious yet, crucially, full of moments of stillness and pain" – Metro

"The textbook opposite of a cosy West End revival… gives a chill distillation of a comfortless vision present in the original" – The Telegraph

"Traditionalists may fulminate, but I was blown away." – Daily Mail

"A commendable job of reinvigorating the play, making it readily accessible by injecting the dialogue with suitably modern concepts." – London Theatre

Editorial Reviews

It was inevitable that the American theater's most Chekhovian writer, Lanford Wilson, would be asked to translate Chekhov. The great Russian's influence marks virtually all of Wilson's plays, from "Balm in Gilead" to "Fifth of July" and "Talley's Folly". What could not have been predicted was how sensitive and intelligent a translator Wilson would be. First commissioned by the Hartford Stage Company in the early 1980s and rewritten several times since its first production in 1984, Wilson's "Three Sisters" is a breathtaking, evocative work in which every character springs to life on the page. Of course, even in stilted translations, one feels for the play's central characters--Olga, Masha, and Irina--and their fruitless yearning to transcend their petty lives and see Moscow. But in Wilson's literate, highly readable version, one comes to understand and feel sympathy even for the play's so-called villainess, the gauche upstart sister-in-law, Natalya. We eagerly await Wilson's next translating project: "Uncle Vanya".

Jack Helbig

We value [Chekhov] for his juxtaposition of comedy and emotional pain, his penetration into character and his understanding of the eternal truths of human nature.” —Telegraph

From the Publisher

"Pevear and Volokhonsky are at once scrupulous translators and vivid stylists of English."

New Yorker

"Pevear and Volokhonsky are at once scrupulous translators and vivid stylists of English."

New Yorker

Ivan R. Dee's excellent discussions are recommended.... Among the best of recent publications: a new adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is provided by Dorothy Louise: while it remains faithful to her intentions, Frankenstein's new look tailors a play for performance and provides a strong plot suitable for contemporary drama. Similarly does Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters, with Curt Columbus providing the new translation and Nicholas Rudall and Bernard Sahlins working their editing magic on both productions.

Library Bookwatch

Senelick . . . has done his job as scholar and translator nearly to perfection.

Weekly Standard

The full-cast performance of THREE SISTERS is a delightful and immediately rewarding experience. The listener vicariously enjoys the stage production along with the audience in the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, savoring sound effects that are enlightening and never overpowering. The performers contribute to the strong interpretation, achieving an ideal pace and lively interaction. Vibrant and educated Russian sisters long to escape the dull rural regions of the land and to return to the thrilling, animated life in Moscow. After their father's death, they achieve their desired relocation—with dire consequences—as the period's history proves. A.W. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2011 - AudioFile