Another installment of our occasional weekend series of landmark Plays because Theatre is a life-changing experience and good plays suspend time.

Tonight it’s Three Sisters by Anton Chekov in a BBC Radio 3 production from March 3, 2016.

The cast:

Olga … Hattie Morahan
Masha … Scarlett Alice Johnson
Irina … Flora Spencer-Longhurst
Andrei … Alex Waldmann
Dr Chebutykin … Robert Pugh
Colonel Vershinin … Elliot Cowan
Baron Tuzenbach … Mark Edel-Hunt
Captain Solyony … Jonathan Forbes
Natasha … Leila Crerar
Kulygin … Sion Pritchard
Anfisa … Shirley Dixon
Ferapont … William Thomas
Fedotik … Gareth Pierce
Roday … Aled Bidder
Adapted for radio by D.J.Britton
Directed by Alison Hindell

Synopsis: There are three Prozorov sisters named Olga, Masha, and Irina. Sister one, Olga, is the oldest of the sisters. She is a teacher at a local school. She has never married and regrets that this hasn’t happened for her. By the end of the play, she has become headmistress. She is kind and takes in Anfisa when Natasha wants to get rid of her.

Sister two, Masha, is the middle sister. She is trained as a classical pianist and is married to Kulygin, also a teacher. She married at eighteen and is less impressed by her older husband than she was when she first married him. She even has an affair with a married military man, Vershinin, who knew the sisters when they were young and with whom she feels a connection. Kulygin, however, continues to optimistically love Masha.

Sister three, Irina, is the youngest of the sisters. She hopes to find love and longs to go back to Moscow. She also is called to find meaningful work, which is lacking in her job at the telegram office. Though she does not feel a complete love connection, she agrees to marry Tuzenbakh, who is very much in love with Irina. Tuzenbakh ends up being killed in a duel by Solyony, another man in love with Irina. At the end of the play, Irina has gone through a teacher training course and has decided to devote herself to a life of service.

Three Sisters, which premiered in 1901, is a play Chekov worked on as part of a collaboration with Constantin Stanislavski and the Moscow Art Theater.

Chances are, if you were a drama major in High School or College, you performed this play – chances too, it was a life-changer.

Two hours and six minutes – get comfy and dive in. It flies by.

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