Compiled by Kyra Baker, Liz Carlson, Jasmine Kojouri, and Sofie Yavorsky for Production Dramaturgy with Ed Sobel, Temple University, 2013
Audience Engagement Samples
Three Sisters Production Concept
Chekhov, perhaps more than any other playwright, understood the heart-breaking and comic contradictions of the human experience. The characters in Three Sisters want desperately to be seen as they want to see themselves, but they overdo almost every attempt. They act on contradictory impulses: to be generous and tough, positive and honest, totally kind and totally truthful, unique and selfless, to love and be loved back in the same measure.
The purpose of this production is to release Chekhov from the preconception that his plays are dull, life-less and full of despair. Instead we intend to present a version of Chekhov that is teeming with hope, possibility and humour, which we believe to be closer to Chekhov’s intention as a writer, then the stiff, morose productions that have arrived on our shores. It is for this reason we have chosen to produce a new translation by Curt Columbus, an American translator and theatre practitioner, who has endeavored to create a visceral, active rendering of Chekhov’s plays. As he writes in his introduction to his translation: ‘ …the people in Chekhov’s plays want to fuck each other.’ What could be more contemporary, more relatable, than that?
We do not want to lose the cultural richness of the play’s innate Russian‐ness: the samovar in Act I, for instance, has no real modern American equivalent; it is gaudy, impractical and inappropriate, a traditional engagement present. Surely an American audience will miss some of the layered meaning behind the object, but when Chebutikin brings in a Stanley Cup sized samovar, we will get the basis for Olga’s ‘A samovar! That's horrible!’
"...Just promise me that we will go to Moscow. I'm begging you, let's go back. There's nothing better in the whole world than Moscow!"
-Irina Act III
"Well, why don't you go! Buy a ticket and go! How hard is it to get on a train? ...But we're not really watching three women who are incapable of making travel plans, are we?" -Curt Columbus, Introduction to Three Sisters
In our reading of the play, Moscow is not necessarily a physical destination: it is a way of life, a place of action and honesty (and good parties). It is a family’s mythologizing of the past. So when Irina says ‘Moscow, Moscow, Moscow!” It is the only vocabulary she has to express her desire to escape the pettiness and exhaustion surrounding her. This play should live fully in the moments of desire, as opposed to moments of disappointment, foreboding, or knowledge of the future. These characters want, work for, and expect everything to turn out perfectly, after all, Moscow is always just around the corner.
The purpose of this production is to release Chekhov from the preconception that his plays are dull, life-less and full of despair. Instead we intend to present a version of Chekhov that is teeming with hope, possibility and humour, which we believe to be closer to Chekhov’s intention as a writer, then the stiff, morose productions that have arrived on our shores. It is for this reason we have chosen to produce a new translation by Curt Columbus, an American translator and theatre practitioner, who has endeavored to create a visceral, active rendering of Chekhov’s plays. As he writes in his introduction to his translation: ‘ …the people in Chekhov’s plays want to fuck each other.’ What could be more contemporary, more relatable, than that?
We do not want to lose the cultural richness of the play’s innate Russian‐ness: the samovar in Act I, for instance, has no real modern American equivalent; it is gaudy, impractical and inappropriate, a traditional engagement present. Surely an American audience will miss some of the layered meaning behind the object, but when Chebutikin brings in a Stanley Cup sized samovar, we will get the basis for Olga’s ‘A samovar! That's horrible!’
"...Just promise me that we will go to Moscow. I'm begging you, let's go back. There's nothing better in the whole world than Moscow!"
-Irina Act III
"Well, why don't you go! Buy a ticket and go! How hard is it to get on a train? ...But we're not really watching three women who are incapable of making travel plans, are we?" -Curt Columbus, Introduction to Three Sisters
In our reading of the play, Moscow is not necessarily a physical destination: it is a way of life, a place of action and honesty (and good parties). It is a family’s mythologizing of the past. So when Irina says ‘Moscow, Moscow, Moscow!” It is the only vocabulary she has to express her desire to escape the pettiness and exhaustion surrounding her. This play should live fully in the moments of desire, as opposed to moments of disappointment, foreboding, or knowledge of the future. These characters want, work for, and expect everything to turn out perfectly, after all, Moscow is always just around the corner.