Three Sisters

Three Sisters is Anton Chekhov’s masterpiece about the Prozorov sisters, Olga, Masha, and Irina, along with their brother, Andrei, who drag out a dull existence in a small provincial garrison town. Only the diversion afforded by the officers and the ever-present dream of someday moving to Moscow keep the sisters going from one drab day to the next. Andrei, who has had dreams of becoming a professor, makes a bad marriage that thwarts his ambition and adds to his sisters’ troubles. His wife, Natasha, becomes a domestic despot. Masha, who is married to the pedantic schoolmaster, Fyodor, tries to find happiness in a love affair with the officer Vershinen. The youngest sister, Irina, attempts to escape the drabness of her life by marrying Baron Tuzenbakh, another officer. The removal of the regiment from the town undoes Masha’s plan, because Vershinen is married and cannot take her with him. Tuzenbakh is killed in a duel. The three sisters are left as they were in the beginning, deriving some faint pleasure from the cheerful sounds of the regimental band as it marches away, still clinging to their hopes for a better life.