In 2023, during the tenth anniversary of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the candlelit theatre hosted its first ever performance of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts. Whilst Shakespeare’s Globe is known for its stagings of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, the success of Ghosts has inspired us to invite more modern classical playwrights onto the Globe’s stages. This winter season, Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters will take to the illuminated stage of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse for the very first time. Three Sisters (1901) is considered to be one of Chekhov’s four major plays, alongside The Seagull (1896), Uncle Vanya (1987) and The Cherry Orchard (1904).

Taking place over three and a half years, Three Sisters gives us glimpses into the lives of the three Prozorov sisters – Olga, Masha and Irina. Within the play, there is no leading protagonist, and Chekhov weaves together the complex experiences, thoughts and emotions of all the characters. Set against the backdrop of everyday life, the play mixes the mundane with the profound. It asks big existential questions about the nature of life, questions that were posed in Shakespeare’s day and that continue to resonate today. Why are we here? What is our purpose? Why do we suffer? The characters in Three Sisters are desperately searching for meaning in their lives. As Masha explains, ‘either you know why you’re alive or it’s all empty, pointless’.

The play opens in the living room of the Prozorov family home, on the one-year anniversary of their father’s death. Having relocated to a dull provincial life eleven years ago, the sisters dream of moving back to Moscow and reclaiming the happiness of their childhood. But when their brother, Andrei, marries his fiancé, Natalya, the sisters’ desire to start a new life in Moscow seems more and more unrealistic. Natalya quickly seizes control of the family home, and the sisters continue to feel unfulfilled by their lives. Olga, the eldest and a hardworking schoolteacher, is constantly grieving the life she has lost. Masha, the middle sister, is trapped in an unhappy marriage, and begins an affair with the charming commander, Vershinin. And the youngest sister, Irina, is so exhausted from the harsh realities of her work that she resigns herself to marrying a man she does not love. Eventually, the sisters are forced to accept defeat, with Irina acknowledging – through tears – that ‘we’ll never go to Moscow… I see that now, we’ll never go’.

In Three Sisters, Chekhov pioneered a dramatic style that continues to influence playwrighting and performance today. Rather than being driven by external action, the play dramatizes the internal desires and feelings of its characters. Many of the characters are stuck in the unrewarding routine of their day-to-day lives, but they also have complex inner worlds in which they yearn for something more. Chekhov’s realist style draws attention to things that seem inconsequential, like parties, small-talk and reading the newspaper. But, in Three Sisters, the highs and lows of human emotion – grief and love, despair and hope – are inseparable from these daily activities.

Chekhov’s marriage of psychological depth and social commentary is one of the reasons his plays remain so relevant today. As Chekhov traces the Prozorov family through the passage of years, he also interrogates societal norms surrounding gender, class and the family. The Prozorov sisters’ search for meaning must take place within the confines of the patriarchal world they inhabit. By taking different approaches to marriage, work and motherhood, the three sisters represent a complex spectrum of femininity and female sexuality. As Cynthia Marsh explains, ‘the presentation of Three Sisters seems an attempt to capture the multifacetedness […] of the roles women play’.

Within these social commentaries, Chekhov consistently creates space for ambiguity. Whilst Natalya becomes an antagonist within Three Sisters – a woman unafraid to use her sexuality to get what she wants – Chekhov still creates moments of empathy for her character. In Act One, Natalya struggles to fit into the refined social circle of the Prozorov family, and she is excluded because of her lower social status. Natalya’s experience of being an ‘outsider’ highlights the negative impacts of the class structures within Russian society, allowing us to better understand her desire to seize control of the Prozorov family home. Hence, Chekhov’s plays encourage us to interrogate our world and our place within it.

Translation has allowed Chekhov’s works to reach readers, performers and theatre practitioners across the world. Three Sisters has been staged in cities including Moscow, London, New York, Paris, Berlin, Toronto and Brisbane. This winter season, Shakespeare’s Globe stages Chekhov for the first time, with a world premiere of a new translation by playwright Rory Mullarkey. The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse offers the perfect backdrop for the domestic realism and intimacy of Three Sisters. Join us in the dazzling candlelight as we continue Chekhov’s exploration of what makes us human.

Three Sisters, directed by Caroline Steinbeis and newly translated by Rory Mullarkey, opens 31 January.

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