Brisbane Festival 2008 presents the Australian Premiere of Declan Donnellan’s legendary production of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters.

Three Sisters is a sweeping family saga of three sisters and a brother living in a small provincial town, dreaming of a better life in Moscow.

“Performed by a stellar Russian ensemble, the acting is nothing short of sublime. Donnellan beautifully portrays the underlying playful girlishness, born of a shared sibling history, that continually bobs to the surface to keep the sisters afloat even at their most anguished. After the fire of Act III, the trio cling tearfully together as huge-eyed Irina grows almost hysterical. When Natasha appears, it is as if she has stumbled upon a conspiracy, and the sisters’ distress dissolves into illicit giggles. It’s little wonder that Natasha, so entirely excluded and who begins in the performance as pretentious and ambitious, yet touchingly awkward, turns spectacularly nasty.

The lightness that illuminates the production lies partly in the sisters’ childlike spontaneity and sense of the absurd, and partly in the characters’ observance of social convention. Evgenia Dmitrieva’s lonely, exhausted Olga busies herself, smilingly, with domestic details; and even as Irina Grineva’s Masha wonders how she can continue to bear her “wretched life” she laughs, politely, helplessly. Yet when she meets Alexander Feklistov’s Vershinin, balding, kind and sensitive, part lover, part father-figure, she slyly and appreciatingly flicks her eyes over his body while his back is turned. It’s deliciously naughty.

Nick Ormerod’s design, with its tiny symbolic doll’s house and oppressive backdrop of perilously tilting walls and windows, conveys the way in which the Prozorov family home is both prison and sanctuary.

“What a pleasure it is to hear Chekhov in Russian. I barely understand a word of the language, but you can follow the dialogue with the help of surtitles, and there is a vigour and urgency about the sound of the language that instantly banishes the wan, droopy quality of second-rate English productions of Chekhov.

Almost everything in Declan Donnellan's fresh, gripping staging feels charged, at times almost feverish, avoiding the usual autumnal melancholy, although there is one beautiful exception.

When the youngest sister, Irina, forlornly yearns for Moscow at the end of the second act, repeating the name of the city three times, the Russian version of the word sounds like the plaintive murmuring of a homesick dove. It proves intensely and unexpectedly moving.”
Daily Telegraph (UK)

Three Sisters is performed in Russian with English surtitles. 

FEATURING

PROZOROV ANDREY SERGEEVICH: Alexey Dadonov
NATALIA IVANOVNA, HIS FIANCEE, AFTERWARDS HIS WIFE: Ekaterina Sibiryakova
OLGA: Evgenia Dmitrieva
MASHA: Irina Grineva
IRINA: Nelli Uvarova
KULYGIN FEDOR ILYICH, HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, MASHA’S HUSBAND: Sergey Lanbamin
VERSHININ: Alexander Ignatievich IGNATIEVICH, LIEUTENANT-COLONEL, BATTERY COMMANDER: Alexander Feklistov
TUZENBACH NIKOLAY LVOVICH, BARON, LIEUTENANT: Artem Semakin
SOLENY VASILY VASILIEVICH, STAFF CAPTAIN: Evgeny Pisarev 
CHEBUTYKIN IVAN ROMANOVICH, MILITARY DOCTOR: Igor Yasulovich
FEDOTIK ALEXEY PETROVICH, SUB-LIEUTENANT: Yury Makeev
RODE VLADIMIR KARPOVICH, SUB-LIEUTENANT: Mikhail Dementiev
FERAPONT, WATCHMAN FOR THE LOCAL COUNCIL, OLD MAN: Alexander Lenkov
ANFISA, NURSE, OLD WOMAN OF 80: Galina Moracheva

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Moscow City Government
Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography
Department for Culture of Moscow
International Confederation of Theatre Associations &
Chekhov International Theatre Festival (Moscow)
Theatre “Les Gemeaux” (Paris)
Theatre “La Filature” (Mulhouse)
In cooperation with “Cheek by Jowl” (London)
With support of British Council Russia
Premiere was held in the Theatre “Les Gemeaux” (Paris) in April, 2005