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 did not last very long. And when the famous theatre man Stanislavski sought Chekhov out after the rehearsal, Chekhov was in a terrible mood, sad and angry, because he thought he had written a funny comedy, but at the reading everyone took it for a drama and wept as they listened. So Chekhov thought the play had been misunderstood and had failed.

So, from the very first rehearsal, something has been up 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. In fact, even famous robots. And people are still always discussing what this famous play is about.

“A regiment comes and a regiment goes” is a famous saying by a famous theatre man, which we here in Estonia like to quote whenever the main event of this famous play comes up. Well, 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 too. And this is what he says at the moment:

“‘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’re not especially keen on doing anything. They live as if in some kind of military unit or something like that. One sister is even married to some old bore who keeps pestering her and, for some reason, praising her. The brother is in love and gets married during the play, but the marriage does not turn out happily. The sisters keep sighing and longing to go to Moscow, because they lived there a long time ago, although they don’t really remember anything about it. And for some reason they don’t go back, but just keep whining. Then there’s a Verzhinin, who is married and has children and all that, but for some reason he starts hovering 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 apparently he won’t be the last.