Chekhov's Three Sisters

By Gordon McVay

Chekhov's penultimate play has inspired a bewildering variety of interpretations since its premi re at the Moscow Arts Theatre on 31 January 1901. Three Sisters has been viewed both as tragedy and as comedy, as a poignant testimony to the eternal yearning for love, happiness, beauty and meaning, and as a devastating indictment of the folly of inert gentility and vacuous day-dreaming. Its characters have been deemed worthy embodiments of the universal 'human condition', keenly experiencing hope, disappointment, frustration, loneliness and the passage of time - or passive products of pre-revolutionary Russian privilege, remnants fit only for the scrap-heap of history. This study analyses the plot, characters and themes of the play, before discussing its reception by Russian and English-language critics, and upon the Russian and British stage.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1853993824
• ISBN13: 9781853993824
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Bristol Classical Press
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.5"