The Three Sisters: Chekhov, Anton

In this, his third adaptation of a Chekhov play, Pulitzer Prize–winning author David Mamet offers a contemporary, highly accessible version of Chekhov’s The Three Sisters. Working from a literal translation by Vlada Chernomordik, Mamet has rediscovered the characteristically modern chords in this powerful play and breathes new life into a timeless classic. This is Chekhov rendered in direct, colloquial language marked by Mamet’s finely tuned ear for dialogue.

The play focuses on the lives of three sisters, Olga, Masha, and Irina, young women of the Russian gentry who try to fill their days in order to construct a life that feels meaningful while surrounded by an array of military men, servants, husbands, suitors, and lovers, all of whom constitute a distraction from the passage of time and from the sisters’ desire to return to their beloved Moscow.

“Mamet’s ear is famously impeccable, the dialogue is always authentic and convincing….[This adaptation] will help to undermine our silly critical notions of ‘definitive’ Chekhov. Mamet has made me rethink the play,” said Robert Brustein in The New Republic of Mamet’s adaptation of The Cherry Orchard. And the Chicago-Sun Times called it “audacious, consistently arresting.”