Three Sisters

Three Sisters
Comedy

Director, set designer and musical designer: Ingomar Vihmar
Author: Anton Chekhov
Translator: Otto Samma
Costume designer: Jaanus Vahtra
Lighting designer: Iiris Purge

On stage: Carmen Mikiver, Kleer Maibaum, Kadri Rämmeld, Kati Ong, Carita Vaikjärv, Priit Loog, Jaan Rekkor, Andrus Vaarik, Märt Avandi, Karl-Andreas Kalmet, Enn Keerd, Ingomar Vihmar

When the famous writer Chekhov attended the first reading rehearsal of his new play “Three Sisters” in 1900, he couldn’t stand it for very long. And when the famous theatre man Stanislavski went looking for Chekhov after the rehearsal, Chekhov was in a terrible mood, sad and angry. He thought he had written a cheerful comedy, but at the reading everyone treated it as a drama and cried while listening. So the play had been misunderstood and had failed, Chekhov thought.

So, from the very first rehearsal, something has been amiss with this famous play. And yet “Three Sisters” is its famous author’s most famous and most frequently performed play, staged and performed by hundreds of famous theatre men and women. Even famous robots, in fact. And people are still always discussing what this famous play is about.

“The regiment comes and the regiment goes” is a famous saying by a famous theatre man, often quoted here in Estonia when people talk about the main event of this famous play.

And now the famous director Vihmar is going to stage this famous play. In fact, more than once, since in the spring he will stage it in Tartu as well. Here is what he says about it:

“‘Three Sisters’ is a play about three sisters and one brother who live somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Russia. Their parents are dead, and they don’t particularly feel like doing anything. They live as if in some kind of military unit or something like that. One sister is even married to some old jerk who keeps pestering her and praising her for some reason. The brother is in love and gets married during the play, but the marriage doesn’t turn out to be happy. The sisters keep sighing and longing to go to Moscow, because they lived there a long time ago, though they don’t really remember anything about it. And for some reason they don’t go back, but keep complaining. Then there’s Vershinin, who is married and has children and all that, but for some reason he starts circling around the married sister. And then, because of the younger sister, some guy gets killed at the end. With a gun. That’s the story.”

And yet, for some reason, he is staging this play. And he probably won’t be the last.