Research Activities
1. The characters in Three Sisters have various beliefs about happiness. Discuss the characters’ points of view and then articulate
your own ideas. What makes you happy now? What do you think
will make you happy in the future?
2. The characters in the play celebrate
Irina’s name day and Carnival.
Think about significant celebrations
in your life. How do they help create
meaning?
• Working in small groups, research
the motif of Three Sisters in
mythology, literature, visual art, film,
and television. Prepare a presentation in which you discuss at least
one example from each genre. Do
you have a theory about why this
motif endures?
NAME DAY
the feast day of the saint
after whom one is named.
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary,
Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002.
3. The sisters are disappointed in their
brother and judge him for his failures. How do you think they
would react if the play were set in the contemporary United
States?
4. How are the Prozorovs affected by their memories of Moscow
and their feelings towards their current town? In what ways do
where we are born and where we live shape us?
5. Olga, Irina, and Andrei all talk about wanting to move back to
Moscow. Why don’t they?
MOTIF
a usually recurring salient
thematic element or feature (as
in a work of art); especially: a
dominant idea or central theme.
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary,
Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002.
• There is a lot of dialogue about education in Three Sisters. The
Prozorovs are extremely well-educated; Chebutykin went to
medical school (and hasn’t read a book since); and Olga, Kulygin,
and eventually, Irina, are teachers. Working in pairs, research and
prepare a presentation comparing the Russian education system
in Chekhov’s time (late 19th-century Russia) to today’s system.
Some suggested questions to investigate are: Who went/goes to
school? What was/is the curriculum like? What training were/are
teachers required to have?
Further Reading
6. What does Moscow represent in this play? What is your
“Moscow?”
Bloom, Harold, ed. Anton Chekhov (Bloom’s Major Dramatists),
Chelsea House Pub, 1999.
7. Chekhov subtitled Three Sisters, “A drama in four acts,” but
critics argue that it is a tragedy or even a comedy. What genre do
you think the play is and why?
Chekhov, Anton. A Life in Letters, trans. Anthony Phillips, ed.
Rosamund Bartlett, Penguin Classics, 2004.
Yevgeniya Kats, Diana Garle & Emily Batsford in Three SIsters/photo by Mitchell Zachs
Discussion Questions
three sisters
by anton chekhov
Gibian, George, ed. The Portable Nineteenth-Century Russian
Reader, Penguin Books, 1993.
Writing Prompts
Gilman, Richard. The Making of Modern Drama, Yale University
Press, 2000.
1. In MTC’s production of Three Sisters, the audience sits on a
rotating riser on the stage. How does this seating configuration
impact your experience of the play?
2. At the end of Three Sisters, Olga says, “It seems like any second
we will know why we live, why we suffer.” Chebutykin’s reaction
is, “What’s the difference?” The sisters all reply individually,
“If only we knew.” How could knowing why we live make a
difference?
Masha
Gottlieb, Vera, and Paul Allain eds. The Cambridge Companion to
Chekhov, Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Translated by Tatsiana Yarashevich
Malcolm, Janet. Reading Chekhov: A Critical Journey, Random
House, 2001.
Original Music and Sound Design by Luciano Stazzone
Rayfield, Donald. Chekhov: A Life, Northwestern University Press,
2000.
Emily Batsford/Photo by Fersson Vega, 2012
3. Three Sisters takes place
in Russia at the turn of
the 20th century. Though
long ago and far away, the
issues the characters face
are relevant for modern
viewers. What situations,
conflicts, or themes in the
play are relevant to your
life?
Adapted by Stephanie Ansin & Fernando Calzadilla
Choreography by Octavio Campos
Set, Costume & Lighting Design by Fernando Calzadilla
Directed by Stephanie Ansin
Common Core Standards
Reading Literature
9-12.RL.2, 9-12.RL.3, 9-12.RL.5, 9-12.RL.9
Writing
9-12.W.1, 9-12.W.5, 9-12.W.9
Miami Theater Center
9806 NE 2nd Avenue
Miami Shores, FL 33138
(305) 751-9550
mtcmiami.org
study guide
2012–13
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born on January 29, 1860 in Taganrog, a mercantile city in southwestern Russia on the Black Sea. Unlike
many notable writers of his day, Chekhov was not born into the gentry.
His paternal grandfather was a
serf who had purchased his
SERF
family’s freedom, and his maDuring the early part of the 19th
ternal grandfather was a cloth
century, Russian peasants known as
serfs were treated as property of the
merchant. Chekhov’s extremely
landowners they worked for. In 1861,
religious and disciplinarian faRussian serfs were given their freether owned a small grocery,
dom; however, due to their limited
skills and financial resources, they
and he forced Chekhov and his
continued to face considerable chalbrothers to spend long hours
lenges. Many former serfs stayed and
working in the store and reworked on the land they had lived
hearsing in the church choir
on prior to earning their freedom.
Instead of being fed and housed in
he conducted. Chekhov often
exchange for their work, they paid
referred to the physical and
rent and received meager wages.
emotional suffering inflicted by
his temperamental father. His
mother Yevgeniya, on the other hand, was an excellent storyteller
who entertained the children with her tales. “Our talents we got from
our father,” Chekhov remarked, “but our soul from our mother.”
In 1876, Chekhov’s father’s business failed. Facing debtors’ prison,
he fled to Moscow to live with his two eldest sons, impoverished
university students. After spending three years alone in Taganrog,
supporting himself by tutoring younger students and cadging food
from relatives, Chekhov graduated from high school, joined his family
in Moscow, and enrolled as a medical student at Moscow University.
He also began earning money writing humorous stories for weekly
journals, eventually delivering over 300 sketches and short stories to
publications in Moscow and St. Petersburg. His writing soon became
his family’s sole source of support.
In 1884, Chekhov received his medical degree and started working
as a general physician. Although he always considered medicine to
be his primary career, he often treated poor patients without charging a fee, so writing remained his more lucrative occupation. Soon
after he began practicing medicine, Chekhov exhibited early signs
of tuberculosis. Even though he was coughing up blood, he chose to
ignore his declining health and continue working tirelessly at both
professions.
In the late 1880s, Chekhov grew interested in writing serious drama. Negative responses to his first plays frustrated him and contributed to his decision to make an 81-day journey to Sakhalin Island,
a penal colony off the Pacific coast of Russia. He conducted
thousands of interviews during his three-month stay and recorded
his own observations of the horPENAL COLONY
rendous living conditions. He subsequently spent three years compiling
A distant or overseas settlement established for punishhis data into a dense social science
ing criminals by forced labor
treatise. His experiences also influand isolation from society.
enced several of his fictional pieces.
Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012.
Class and Gender
in 19th Century Russia
Social Structure
19th century Russians were born into one of four social classes:
peasants, townspeople, clergy, and gentry, and for the most part,
they did not have the opportunity to move up in rank. Joining the
military provided the one exception to that rule. If a man born into a
modest social class rose in military rank, he had a chance of rising in
social rank as well.
Patriarchal Restriction
Chekhov and Olga Knipper
In 1892, Chekhov bought a small country estate about forty miles
south of Moscow. In 1898, a successful production of his script
The Seagull fueled his renewed interest in playwriting, but his ill
health forced him to move to the warmer climate of Yalta. In 1901,
Chekhov married Olga Knipper, a leading actress of the Moscow
Art Theatre. Unfortunately, the marriage was short-lived because in
1904 he lost his life to the tuberculosis that had plagued him for
almost two decades.
Chekhov on the Role of the Artist
“You are confusing two concepts: the solution of a problem and
the correct posing of a question. Only the second is obligatory for
an artist.”
– Anton Chekhov in a letter to Aleksey Suvorin, Russian journalist,
theater critic, and publisher
Chekhov’s ideas regarding literature set
him apart from most other Russian writers
and critics of the time. They believed that
literature should instruct people on how to
live, and Chekhov was often criticized for his
failure to pass judgment on even his most
contemptible characters. In contrast, Chekhov
wrote to a critic, “To think that it is the duty
of literature to pluck the pearl from the heap
of villains is to deny literature itself. Literature
is called artistic when it depicts life as it actually is…. A writer should be as objective as a
chemist.”
– Anton Chekhov in a letter to M. V. Kiseleva, 14 January 1887
During Chekhov’s lifetime, a male autocrat, the tsar, ruled the
country; the Patriarch of Moscow controlled
AUTOCRAT
the Russian Orthodox Church; and the father
a monarch ruling with
held complete authority over the family. In this
unlimited authority.
patriarchal climate, women’s lives were
Webster’s Third New International
Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriamdefined solely by their roles as daughters,
Webster, 2002.
wives, and mothers, and Russian policies often enforced
women’s domestic roles. For exPATRIARCHY
ample, although Alexander II’s
social organization marked by the
social reforms of the 1860s alsupremacy of the father in the clan or
family in both domestic and religious
lowed women to become teachfunctions, the legal dependence of
ers, school officials asserted that
wife or wives and children, and the
work interfered with women’s
reckoning of descent and inheritance
family duties. Thus, women
in the male line.
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary,
could teach or get married, but
Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002.
they could not do both. Women
teachers were fired once they
wed. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, women teachers
began to fight against the marriage ban, and it was finally lifted
in 1913.
So Many Names!
As you watch Three Sisters, you may get confused by the different
ways the characters are addressed. For instance, Andrei is variously
called: Andrei, Andrushka, Andrushanchik, Andrei Sergeyevich, and
Prozorov. His sister Olga is referred to as: Olga, Olya, Olyushka,
and Olga Sergeyevna. These names reflect a character’s gender
and the varying levels of formality in his or her relationships and
circumstances.
Structure
Traditional Russian names are comprised of three parts:
first name, patronymic, and family name.
• In informal and intimate situations, the first name is often replaced by a diminutive, a nickname like Will for William or Julie for
Julia. (ex. Andrushka, Andrushanchik for Andrei; Olya, Olyushka
for Olga).
• The patronymic is comprised of one’s father’s first name and a
masculine or feminine ending. (ex. Andrei and Olga’s father was
Sergei, so Andrei’s patronymic is Sergeyevich and Olga’s patronymic is Sergeyevna.)
• The family name also reflects gender. (ex. Andrei and Olga’s father’s family name was Prozorov. Andrei’s last name is Prozorov
as well, but Olga is female, so the family name takes a feminine
ending to become Prozorova.)
Yevgeniya Kats & Diana Garle/Photo by Daniel Bock, 2012
Anton Chekhov 1860–1904
Women were also restricted in their movement around the country. All citizens who wanted to travel more than thirty versta (about
twenty miles) from his or her place of residence had to carry an internal passport, but a woman could only obtain a passport with permission from her father or husband.
Olga & Irina
Usage
Young Chekhov
The most formal way to refer to a Russian is by their first name and
patronymic (ex. Andrei Sergeyevich rather than Mr. Prozorov.) In a
slightly less formal situation, the patronymic can be shortened by
removing the “ov/ev” (ex. Sergeyevich becomes Sergeyich). Family
names are used by elders addressing subordinates (ex. Prozorov).
First names are used by friends and work colleagues. Diminutives
are used for family members, very close friends, and small children.