Overview
Raised in Moscow, Ólga, Másha, and Irína are stuck in a rural town they hate. Ólga is a schoolteacher, Másha is in a loveless marriage, and today is Irína’s 22nd birthday and the first anniversary of their father’s death. Friends visit, including Colonel Vershínin, the new dashing army base commander. Soon, the married colonel and Másha begin a passionate affair. Irína, meanwhile, has two suitors, but loves neither. The situation is like a dry forest waiting for a spark. When the smoke clears, one of Irina’s suitors has killed the other, and Vershinin must leave Másha when the army closes the base. The siblings are left to wonder what their suffering means and if there’s any reason to still hope.
Casting & Production
Casting
Andréy Prózorov
Ólga, his sister
Másha, his sister
Irína, his sister
Natásha, Andréy’s 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
Freeport, janitor at the County Council, an old man
Anfísa, the Prózorov’s eighty-year-old nurse
Setting
The action takes place in and around the Prózorov’s house over the course of several years.
Reviews
“Enabled by…Paul Schmidt’s contemporized translation, the great naturalist’s restrained sub-textual exploration of psychic disquiet is muscled to the surface and pressed to flower right from the get-go…”
—DC Theatre Scene
