What Is the Story of Three Sisters?
Chekhov’s classic play, first produced in 1901, tells the story of a family living unhappily in a provincial Russian town. The title siblings are Olga, an unmarried teacher; Masha, who’s married but who embarks on an affair with a visiting lieutenant; and Irina, who longs to go to Moscow to find her true love. The sisters dote on their brother Andrei, who has high hopes for an academic career at the beginning of the play but soon settles into marriage and fatherhood with an overbearing village girl named Natasha. Over the course of four acts, the family members interact with various friends, visitors and servants and experience passion and heartbreak, all the while pining for that elusive trip to Moscow.