At first glance, stories and plays by the celebrated Russian writer Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) are deceptively simple. His play The Three Sisters, which was recently staged by the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) under the direction of Andrew Benedict, is no exception. There are no heroic deeds or grand tragedy in this four-act examination of the unrequited hopes of the Prozorov sisters—Olga, Masha and Irina—and their friends in a small provincial Russian town. But this beautifully crafted work, written in 1901, explores a range of universal themes and issues that can strongly resonate with contemporary audiences if sensitively staged and performed.

Olga (Melita Jurisic), the oldest, fears her youth and vitality is being sapped by her job as a teacher in a local school; Masha (Paula Arundell) is unhappily married to Kulygin (Anthony Phelan), a teacher she married early but whom she has now outgrown; and Irina (Rose Byrne), who aspires to a life of substance. Along with their brother Andrei (Steve Rodgers), who wants to become a philosophy professor, they all dream of returning to cosmopolitan Moscow and escaping the mediocrity and provincialism of their lives. These hopes, however, are not realised.

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