Five Plays

Anton Chekhov, Marina Brodskaya

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780804775748
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Drama
• Index: Literature

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904) overturned the dramatic conventions of his day and laid the groundwork for contemporary approaches to directing and acting. Now, for the first time, the full lyricism, humor, and pathos of his greatest plays are available to an English-speaking audience. Marina Brodskaya's new translations of Ivanov, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard not only surpass in accuracy all previous translations, but also provide the first complete English text of the plays, restoring passages entirely omitted by her predecessors. This much-needed volume renders Chekhov in language that will move readers and theater audiences alike, making accessible his wordplay, unstated implications, and innovations. His characters' vulnerabilities, needs, and neuroses—their humanity—emerge through their genuine, self-absorbed conversations. The plays come to life as never before and will surprise readers with their vivacity, originality, and relevance.

THREE SISTERS
A Drama in Four Acts

Characters

PROZOROV, ANDREY SERGEYEVICH

NATALIA IVANOVNA, his fiancée, later his wife

KULYGIN, FEDOR ILYCH, a teacher at a secondary school, Masha’s husband

VERSHININ, ALEXANDER IGNATIEVICH, lieutenant colonel and battery commander

TUZENBACH, NIKOLAI LVOVICH, baron, lieutenant

SOLYONY, VASILY VASILIEVICH, captain

CHEBUTYKIN, IVAN ROMANOVICH, army doctor

FEDOTIK, ALEXEY PETROVICH, second lieutenant

RODEH, VLADIMIR KARLOVICH, second lieutenant

FERAPONT, caretaker at the county council offices, an old man

ANFISA, nanny, old woman aged 80

The action takes place in a provincial town.

ACT ONE

The Prozorovs’ house. A drawing room with columns; on the other side—a large reception room. It is noon; outside the weather is sunny and cheerful. In the dining room, the table is being set for lunch. Olga, wearing the regulation dark blue dress of a teacher at a secondary school for girls is continuously correcting students’ exercise books, standing and pacing about the room; Masha, in a black dress, sits with her hat on her lap reading a book; Irina, in a white dress, stands lost in thought.

OLGA: Father died exactly a year ago, this very day, May fifth, your name day,¹ Irina. It was very cold then, and snowing. I thought that I’d never get over it, and you fainted: were lying there lifeless. But now, a year later, it is easy for us to think back on it, and you’re already in a white dress, looking radiant…

The clock strikes twelve.

The clock was striking then, too.

I remember when they were carrying Father, the band was playing, and shots were fired at the cemetery. He was a general, a brigade commander, and yet, there were very few people there. Probably because it was raining. A heavy rain with snow.

IRINA: Why bring that up!

Baron Tuzenbach, Chebutykin, and Solyony appear behind the columns, near the table in the dining room.

OLGA: It’s warm today; you can keep the windows wide open, but the leaves on the birch trees haven’t opened yet. Father was given a brigade here and left Moscow with us eleven years ago, and I remember it so well; it was early May then too, and everything is in bloom in Moscow; it’s warm and everything is bathed in sunlight. Eleven years ago, but I remember it all as though we left just yesterday. Oh, my God! I woke up this morning, saw all this light, saw the spring, and joy stirred in my heart, and I wanted so much to go back home.

CHEBUTYKIN [To Solyony and Tuzenbach]: The hell you will!

TUZENBACH: Of course, that’s all nonsense.

Masha, absorbed in reading, softly whistles a song.

OLGA: Stop whistling, Masha. How can you do that!

A pause.

Because I’m at school every day and then I give private lessons into the evening, my head hurts all the time, and the thoughts that come to me…as if I were already old. Come to think of it, in the four years that I’ve been working at the school, I feel my youth and energy draining out of me every day, drop by drop. And only one hope keeps getting stronger…

IRINA: To go to Moscow. To sell the house, drop everything here, and go to Moscow…

OLGA: Yes! To Moscow, as soon as possible.

Chebutykin and Tuzenbach laugh.

IRINA: Our brother will probably become a professor, and he won’t live here anyway. The only thing keeping us from going is poor Masha.

OLGA: Masha will come to Moscow for the summer every year.

Masha whistles a tune softly.

IRINA: With God’s help everything will work out. [Looking out of the window] The weather’s beautiful today. I don’t know why I feel so blissful! This morning, I remembered it was my name-day and I suddenly felt such joy, and I remembered my childhood when Mama was still alive. And such delightful thoughts stirred inside me!

OLGA: You’re so radiant today and you look unbelievably beautiful. Masha’s beautiful, too. Andrey would look good, except that he’s put on too much weight and it doesn’t suit him. And I’ve aged and lost a lot of weight—probably because I get upset with the girls at school. Today I’m free; I’m home, and my head doesn’t hurt, and I feel younger than I did yesterday. I’m only twenty-eight…Everything’s all right, it’s God’s will, but I think if I’d been married and stayed home all day, it would be better.

A pause.

I would love my husband.

TUZENBACH [To Solyony]: What you’re saying is such nonsense; I’m fed up listening to you. [Entering the drawing room] Oh, I forgot to tell you that our new battery commander, Vershinin, is going to call on you today. [Sits down at the piano]

OLGA: Well, then! I’m glad to hear it.

IRINA: Is he old?

TUZENBACH: No, not particularly. Forty, forty-five at the most. [Plays softly] Seems like a good fellow. Definitely not stupid. Only he talks a lot.

IRINA: Is he good-looking?

TUZENBACH: He’s all right; only he has a wife, a mother-in-law, and two girls. It’s his second marriage. He calls on everyone and tells them that he has a wife and two girls. He’ll tell you, too. His wife’s loony: she wears her hair in a long braid like a schoolgirl, speaks always in this high-flown manner, philosophizes, and attempts suicide frequently, probably to spite her husband. I would’ve left a woman like that long ago, but he puts up with her and only complains.

SOLYONY [Walking with Chebutykin from the dining room into the living room]: With one hand I can lift only fifty-five pounds, but with both, I can lift over two hundred pounds. From this I deduce that two men are not twice as strong as one, but three times as strong, and even more…

CHEBUTYKIN [Reading a newspaper as he walks in]: To prevent hair loss…eight grams of naphthalene to a half bottle of pure alcohol…dissolve and apply daily…[Writes in his notebook] We’ll make a note of it! [To Solyony] So, as I was saying, you put a little cork into a little bottle and you have a small glass tube running through it…Then you take a pinch of ordinary, everyday alum…

IRINA: Ivan Romanych, dear Ivan Romanych!

CHEBUTYKIN: What is it, my darling little girl?

IRINA: Tell me, why do I feel so happy today? As if I had wind in my sails, this immense blue sky, and big white birds soaring above me. Why is that? Why?

CHEBUTYKIN [Kisses both her hands, tenderly]: My white bird…

IRINA: When I woke up this morning, got up, washed my face, I suddenly got this feeling that everything in the world was clear to me, and I knew how to live. Dear Ivan Romanych, I know everything. People must work by the sweat of their brow, no matter who they are, and that’s the meaning and goal of their lives; their happiness and joy. How good it feels to be a worker who gets up at dawn and crushes stones in the street, or a shepherd, or a schoolteacher who teaches children, or a machinist on the railroad…Heavens, forget being human, I’d rather b...