Three Sisters (TCG Edition)

Anton Chekhov, Paul Schmidt

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 1993
• ISBN:
  9781559366816
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Arte dramático

This refreshingly clear and colloquial adaptation was the basis for the Wooster Group's acclaimed production Brace Up!

Three Sisters

CHARACTERS

Andréi Prózorov.

Natásha, his fiancée, later his wife.

Kulýgin, Másha’s husband, a high school teacher.

Vershínin, colonel, battery commander.

Baron Túzenbach, first lieutenant.

Solyóny, captain.

Chebutýkin, army doctor.

Fedótik, second lieutenant.

Róhde, second lieutenant.

Ferapónt, janitor at the County Council, an old man.

Anfísa, the Prozorovs’ eighty-year-old nurse.

Act One

The Prózorov house. A big living room, separated by columns from a dining room in the rear. It is noon; the weather is sunny and bright. In the dining room the table is being set for lunch.

Ólga wears a dark blue high-school teacher’s dress; she stands or walks about, correcting blue books. Másha wears a black dress; she is seated reading, with her hat on her lap. Irína wears a white dress; she stands lost in thought.

OLGA: It’s a year ago today that father died, May fifth, on your birthday, Irína. It was very cold, and it snowed. I never thought I’d live through it. You fainted and you were lying there as if you were dead too. But now it’s a year later and it doesn’t bother us to talk about it, you’re wearing a white dress and you look lovely.

(The clock strikes noon.)

And the clock struck that morning just the same way. (Pause) I remember when they carried father’s coffin out there was a band playing, it was a military funeral, and at the cemetery they fired rifles over the grave. He was a general, a brigade commander. I thought there should have been more people, but it was raining, raining hard, and then it started to snow.

IRINA: I don’t want to think about it.

(Baron Túzenbach, Chebutýkin and Solyóny appear in the dining room.)

OLGA: Today it’s warm enough to leave the windows wide open, even though the birch trees haven’t put out any leaves yet. Father got his command eleven years ago and we left Moscow and came here, it was the beginning of May then too, I remember exactly, Moscow was already full of flowers, it was warm and there was sunshine everywhere. That was eleven years ago, and I remember it all exactly, just as if we’d only left Moscow yesterday. Oh, my! This morning I woke up and realized it was springtime, everything was so bright, I felt such a wave of happiness inside me, and I wanted so much to go back home.

CHEBUTYKIN: The hell you say!

TUZENBACH: You’re right, it’s all a lot of nonsense.

(Másha looks up absently and whistles under her breath.)

OLGA: Másha, don’t whistle like that! Really! (Pause) I spend the whole day at school and then I do extra tutoring in the evenings, and my head aches all the time and I get so depressed sometimes, it’s as if I’d gotten old all of a sudden. Four years at that high school, and every day I feel as if a little more life and strength was slipping away from me. There’s only one thing that keeps me going . . .

IRINA: Moscow! Going back to Moscow! Selling this house and everything and going back to Moscow . . .

OLGA: Yes. Going back to Moscow as soon as we can.

(Chebutýkin and Túzenbach laugh.)

IRINA: Brother of course will be a scientist, he certainly can’t go on living here. Only there is a problem about poor Másha . . .

OLGA: Másha can come spend the summers with us, every year.

(Másha whistles under her breath.)

IRINA: Well, I hope everything will work out. (Looks out the window) The weather is wonderful today. I don’t know why I feel so good! This morning I remembered it was my birthday, and all of a sudden I felt wonderful, I thought about when I was little, when mama was alive—I kept thinking the most wonderful things!

OLGA: You do look lovely today, you seem really beautiful. And Másha is beautiful too. Andréi would be better looking, but he’s gotten awfully heavy, it doesn’t look good on him. And I’ve gotten old. I’ve lost far too much weight, I’m sure it’s all because of the girls at the high school, they keep making me so angry. But today is Sunday, I can stay home, my head doesn’t ache, and I feel much younger than I did yesterday. Well, that’s all right, it’s God’s will, but sometimes I think if I’d gotten married and could stay home all day long, that would be better somehow. (Pause) I would have loved my husband.

TUZENBACH (To Solyóny): Nothing you say makes any sense! I can’t take it any more. (Comes into the living room) I forgot to tell you. Our new commanding officer is coming to pay you a visit today. Colonel Vershínin. (Sits down at the piano)

OLGA: Really? We’d be delighted.

IRINA: Is he old?

TUZENBACH: No, not at all. Maybe forty, forty-five at the most. (Starts to play quietly) He seems very nice. Definitely not stupid. He just talks a lot.

IRINA: Is he interesting?

TUZENBACH: I suppose so. He has a wife, a mother-in-law, and two little girls. And it’s his second marriage. Everywhere he goes he tells people he has a wife and two little girls. Wait and see, he’ll tell you too. His wife is a little crazy. She wears her hair in braids like a schoolgirl, she uses very highfalutin language, talks philosophy, and spends a lot of time trying to kill herself—mostly in order to annoy her husband, so far as I can tell. I would have left a woman like that long ago, but he just hangs on and complains about her.

(Solyóny comes into the living room with Chebutýkin.)

SOLYONY: I can only lift fifty pounds with one arm, but with two arms I can lift a hundred and fifty pounds, even more. What do I conclude from that? That two men are not just twice as strong as one, but three times as strong, or even more . . .

CHEBUTYKIN (Reading his newspaper as he walks): To prevent falling hair. Two ounces of naphtha, in half a bottle of alcohol. Shake and use daily . . . (Writes in a little notebook) Well, let’s just make a little note of that! (To Solyóny) All right now, as I was saying, you take a cork, stick it in the bottle, then you get a little glass pipe and stick it through the cork. Then you take a pinch of ordinary, everyday baking soda . . .

IRINA: Iván Románich! Dear Iván Románich!

CHEBUTYKIN: What is it, child, what is it, dearest?

IRINA: Tell me why I feel so happy today! I feel as if I had sails flying in the wind, and the sky over me was bright blue and full of white birds. . . . Why is that? Do you know why?

CHEBUTYKIN (Kissing both her hands tenderly): You’re my little white bird . . .

IRINA: When I got...